Credit: E. Shaya, D. Dowling/U. of Maryland, the WFPC Team, and NASA/ESA

An image of the central part of the ultra-luminuous infrared galaxy Arp 220 taken with the WFPC on the Hubble Space Telescope. HST reveals a new complex structure within one arc second of the nucleus. While part of the this structure was seen in radio interfero-metric maps, most of the structure is new. HST reveals a new class of object at the core: gigantic young star clusters which are ten times larger than any clusters observed previously. They were probably produces by the collision of two spiral galaxies. Stars are produced at a furious rate from the dust and gas supplied by the collision.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9216b/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License