A Galactic spectacle

Esahubble_opo1025a_1024

esahubble_opo1025a August 5th, 2010

Credit: NASA, ESA, SAO, CXC, JPL-Caltech, and STScI. Acknowledgment: G. Fabbiano and Z. Wang (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA, USA), and B. Whitmore (STScI)

A beautiful new image of two colliding galaxies has been released by NASA's Great Observatories. The Antennae galaxies, located about 62 million light-years from Earth, are shown in this composite image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), the Hubble Space Telescope (gold and brown), and the Spitzer Space Telescope (red). The Antennae galaxies take their name from the long antenna-like "arms," seen in wide-angle views of the system. These features were produced by tidal forces generated in the collision. The collision, which began more than 100 million years ago and is still occurring, has triggered the formation of millions of stars in clouds of dusts and gas in the galaxies. The most massive of these young stars have already sped through their evolution in a few million years and exploded as supernovae. The X-ray image from Chandra shows huge clouds of hot, interstellar gas that have been injected with rich deposits of elements from supernova explosions. This enriched gas, which includes elements such as oxygen, iron, magnesium, and silicon, will be incorporated into new generations of stars and planets. The bright, point-like sources in the image are produced by material falling onto black holes and neutron stars that are remnants of the massive stars. Some of these black holes may have masses that are almost one hundred times that of the Sun. The Spitzer data show infrared light from warm dust clouds that have been heated by newborn stars, with the brightest clouds lying in the overlapping region between the two galaxies. The Hubble data reveal old stars and star-forming regions in gold and white, while filaments of dust appear in brown. Many of the fainter objects in the optical image are clusters containing thousands of stars. The Chandra image was taken in December 1999. The Spitzer image was taken in December 2003. The Hubble image was taken in July 2004, and February 2005.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo1025a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Antennae Galaxies NGC 4038 NGC4039
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Type > Interacting
Esahubble_opo1025a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 12h 1m 52.9s
DEC = -18° 52’ 58.6”
Orientation
North is 30.7° CW
Field of View
3.4 x 3.4 arcminutes
Constellation
Corvus

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Spitzer (IRAC) Infrared (Near-IR) 827.0 pm
Yellow Hubble (ACS) Infrared (I) 435.0 nm
Yellow Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) 550.0 nm
Yellow Hubble (ACS) Optical (B) 814.0 nm
Blue Chandra (ACIS) X-ray 8.0 µm
Spectrum_xray1
Red
Yellow
Yellow
Yellow
Blue
Esahubble_opo1025a_1280
×
ID
opo1025a
Subject Category
C.5.1.7  
Subject Name
Antennae Galaxies, NGC 4038, NGC4039
Credits
NASA, ESA, SAO, CXC, JPL-Caltech, and STScI. Acknowledgment: G. Fabbiano and Z. Wang (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA, USA), and B. Whitmore (STScI)
Release Date
2010-08-05T17:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo1025a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Spitzer Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra
Instrument
IRAC, ACS, ACS, ACS, ACIS
Color Assignment
Red, Yellow, Yellow, Yellow, Blue
Band
Infrared, Infrared, Optical, Optical, X-ray
Bandpass
Near-IR, I, V, B, -
Central Wavelength
0.827, 435, 550, 814, 8000
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
180.4704666, -18.8829452
Reference Dimension
3545.0, 3600.0
Reference Pixel
1773.5, 1801.0
Scale
-1.58559e-05, 1.5855943e-05
Rotation
-30.72
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
http://www.spacetelescope.org/
Name
Chandra X-ray Observatory Center
Email
cxcpub@cfa.harvard.edu
Telephone
617.496.7941
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
opo1025a
Metadata Date
2019-10-07T11:40:53.245041
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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