[3][4][5] Despite being in the relatively nearby, large Ophiuchus Cluster, due to its location behind the Milky Way galactic disc relative to the Earth's perspective (known as the Zone of Avoidance), the majority of the cluster including NeVe 1 are heavily obscured and invisible to the naked eye, such that it can only be observed in wavelengths beyond the visible spectrum, such as X-rays and infrared.

[8] This was further attested by the detection of luminous X-ray and radio emission in the object that is indicative of an active galactic nucleus,[9] leading to its identification as not a nearby planetary nebula from a dying star, but a full-fledged giant galaxy lying beyond the Milky Way.

[1] Observations using the Chandra X-ray Observatory in 2010 revealed that NeVe 1 sits at the center of a comet-like structure of its host cluster, indicative of ram-pressure stripping and the merger of at least two smaller subclusters.

The head of the structure sits about 4 kiloparsecs (13,000 light-years) from NeVe 1 and the galaxy itself is classified as a cooling core with high X-ray emission in contrast to the hot, intracluster medium of the Ophiuchus Cluster.

[10] In a paper published in 2020, NeVe 1 and its surrounding region has been identified as an extreme example of a giant radio fossil—with structures indicative of a much more violent AGN activity in the past.

[11] This concave arc is part of an enormous cavity, a void region of the intracluster medium with the diameter of at least 460 kpc (1.5 million light-years) that corresponds to an extensive, radio-emitting structure extending throughout the cluster.