This amazing view of a pair of spiral galaxies called Arp 72 is a violent collision happening in slow motion, according to the Hubble team.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!
This image shows Arp 72, a galaxy pair that includes NGC 5996 (large spiral galaxy) and NGC 5994 (its smaller companion, in the lower left of the image). The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), which is mounted on NSF’s Víctor M. Blanco 4-m telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Four filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / L. Galbany / J. Dalcanton / Dark Energy Survey / DOE / FNAL / DECam / CTIO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA.
The Arp 72 system is located approximately 160 million light-years away in the constellation of Serpens.
Arp 72 consists of the oddly-shaped spiral galaxy NGC 5996 and the smaller, less-deformed spiral galaxy NGC 5994.
NGC 5996 was first spotted by the German-British astronomer William Herschel on March 21, 1784.
NGC 5994 was discovered by the Irish engineer and astronomer Bindon Stoney on March 9, 1851.
“The cores of these galaxies are separated from each other by a distance of around 67,000 light-years,” the Hubble astronomers said.
“Moreover, the distance between the galaxies at their closest points is even smaller, closer to 40,000 light-years.”
“Whilst this might still sound vast, in galactic separation terms it is really very cosy!”
“For comparison, the distance between the Milky Way and its nearest independent galactic neighbor Andromeda is around 2.5 million light-years.”
“Alternatively, the distance between the Milky Way and its largest and brightest satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, is about 162,000 light-years.”
“Given this, coupled with the fact that NGC 5996 is roughly comparable in size to the Milky Way, it is not surprising that NGC 5996 and NGC 5994 are interacting with one another,” the researchers said.
“In fact, the interaction might be what has caused the spiral shape of NGC 5996 to distort and apparently be drawn in the direction of NGC 5994.”
“It also prompted the formation of the very long and faint tail of stars and gas curving away from NGC 5996, up to the top right of the image.”
“This tidal tail is a common phenomenon that appears when galaxies get in close together, as can be seen in several Hubble images.”
