Video Credit: ESO
Mergers and Acquisitions
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Tag Archives: Colliding Galaxies
Mergers and Acquisitions
NGC 2207 and IC 2163 are a pair of colliding spiral galaxies about 80 million light-years away in the constellation Canis Major. NGC 2207 is in the process of tidally stripping IC 2163.
Image Credit: NASA
Arp 143
Video Credit: NASA
Mergers and Acquisitions
NGC 520 is a pair of colliding galaxies a bit over 100 million light-years away. Simulations indicate the pair began interacting about 300 million years ago. The system is still in an early stage of its merger with each galaxy still moving at its own velocity.
Image Credit: NASA / ESA
Hubble Is Back In Business
These images are among the first from Hubble after its return to full science operations. On the left is ARP-MADORE2115-273, a rarely observed example of a pair of interacting galaxies. On the right is ARP-MADORE0002-503, a large spiral galaxy with unusual spiral arms. Most disk galaxies have an even number of spiral arms, but this one has three.
Image Credits: Science—NASA / ESA / STScI / Julianne Dalcanton (UW)
Image processing—Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
Mergers and Acquisitions
NGC 6240 is a cosmic catastrophe in its final throes. It’s a titanic collision of galaxies throwing distorted tidal tails of stars, gas, and dust and undergoing massive bursts of star formation. The two supermassive black holes in the original galactic cores will also coalesce into a single, even more massive black hole. Eventually, only one large galaxy will remain.
Image Credit: NASA
Mergers and Acquisitions
Video Credit: STScI
Mergers and Acquisitions
This video pans over Arp-Madore 2026-424 (AM 2026-424, the collision of two galaxies of equal size around 700 million light-years away.
Video Credit: ESA
Mergers and Acquisitions
This video gives the viewer a closer look at the collision of two galaxies that has been cataloged as Arp-Madore 2026-424. The final image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Video Credit: ESA
Boo!
Video Credit: NASA
A Colossal Interaction
This picture shows a galaxy known as NGC 6872 in the constellation of Pavo (The Peacock). Its unusual shape is caused by its interactions with the smaller galaxy called IC 4970 that can be seen just above it. The pair are roughly 300 million light-years away from Earth.
NGC 6872 measures over 500,000 light-years across. It’s the second largest spiral galaxy discovered thus far. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, measures around 100,000 light-years across.
The upper left spiral arm of NGC 6872 appears distorted and is filled with star-forming regions which appear blue on this Hubble image. That may have been be caused by IC 4970 recently (only about 130 million years ago) passing through this spiral arm. Astronomers have noted that NGC 6872 seems to be relatively sparse in terms of free hydrogen, which is the basis material for new stars. It is probable that if it weren’t for its interactions with IC 4970, NGC 6872 might not have been able to produce these new bursts of star formation.
Image Credit: NASA / ESA
Mergers and Acquisitions
NGC 6052 is a pair of colliding galaxies located about 230 million light-years away in the constellation of Hercules. The pair were first discovered in 1784 by William Herschel, and they were thought to be a single irregular galaxy because of their odd shape. However, NGC 6052 actually consists of two galaxies in the process of colliding.
Image Credit: ESA / NASA