Galaxy gets a cosmic hair ruffling

Esahubble_potw1430a_1024

esahubble_potw1430a July 28th, 2014

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Luca Limatola

From objects as small as Newton's apple to those as large as a galaxy, no physical body is free from the stern bonds of gravity, as evidenced in this stunning picture captured by the Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Here we see two spiral galaxies engaged in a cosmic tug-of-war but in this contest, there will be no winner. The structures of both objects are slowly distorted to resemble new forms, and in some cases, merge together to form new, super galaxies. This particular fate is similar to that of the Milky Way Galaxy, when it will ultimately merge with our closest galactic partner, the Andromeda Galaxy. There is no need to panic however, as this process takes several hundreds of millions of years. Not all interacting galaxies result in mergers though. The merger is dependent on the mass of each galaxy, as well as the relative velocities of each body. It is quite possible that the event pictured here, romantically named 2MASX J06094582-2140234, will avoid a merger event altogether, and will merely distort the arms of each spiral without colliding the cosmic equivalent of a hair ruffling! These galactic interactions also trigger new regions of star formation in the galaxies involved, causing them to be extremely luminous in the infrared part of the spectrum. For this reason, these types of galaxies are referred to as LIRGs, or Luminous Infrared Galaxies. This image was taken as part of as part of a Hubble survey of the central regions of LIRGs in the local Universe, which also used the NICMOS instrument. A version of this image was entered into the Hubble's Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Luca Limatola.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1430a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
2MASX J06094582-2140234
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Activity > Ultraluminous
Esahubble_potw1430a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 6h 9m 43.9s
DEC = -21° 40’ 31.1”
Orientation
North is 40.0° CW
Field of View
2.6 x 2.6 arcminutes
Constellation
Lepus

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Cyan Hubble (ACS) Optical (g) 435.0 nm
Red Hubble (ACS) Infrared (I) 814.0 nm
Orange Hubble (WFC3) Infrared (I) 1.6 µm
Spectrum_base
Cyan
Red
Orange
Esahubble_potw1430a_1280
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ID
potw1430a
Subject Category
C.5.3.4  
Subject Name
2MASX J06094582-2140234
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Luca Limatola
Release Date
2014-07-28T10:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1430a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
ACS, ACS, WFC3
Color Assignment
Cyan, Red, Orange
Band
Optical, Infrared, Infrared
Bandpass
g, I, I
Central Wavelength
435, 814, 1600
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
92.4330459463, -21.6752978681
Reference Dimension
3064.0, 3064.0
Reference Pixel
1532.0, 1532.0
Scale
-1.39260066233e-05, 1.39260066233e-05
Rotation
-39.999999999999979
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
http://www.spacetelescope.org/
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
potw1430a
Metadata Date
2014-01-16T16:40:26+01:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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