#ic2163

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Colliding spiral galaxies

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Interacting galaxies NGC 2207 and IC 2163

In this composite image made from data by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA, https://goo.gl/utFUAD) and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope you can see NGC 2207 (top) and IC 2163 (bottom).

NGC 2207 is an intermediate spiral galaxy (https://goo.gl/7jepc4), IC 2163 is a barred spiral galaxy (https://goo.gl/d3D1xC), they are located in the constellation of Canis Major (The Greater Dog, https://goo.gl/MS66TM) about 114 million light-years away from Earth.

The galaxies are a pair of interacting galaxies (https://goo.gl/ipKZIe), their future will most likely be a galaxy merger (https://goo.gl/C1SCNa) with the resulting galaxy being an elliptical galaxy or a disk galaxy.

They already brushed past each other, with IC 2163 passing behind NGC 2207 and their spiral arms collided. This close encounter triggered a new phase of star formation (https://goo.gl/Mn2Zxf) already and also led to the development of an ocular structure, cosmic “eyelids” made of compressed ridges of gas and dust (Read an explanation of that in the NRAO link below).

NGC 2207 and IC 2163 were discovered in 1835 by the English astronomer John Herschel (https://goo.gl/WCo123).

More information here:

http://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1645a/

https://public.nrao.edu/news/pressreleases/2016-alma-eyelid

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_2207_and_IC_2163

A Chandra image of the galaxies can be found here:

http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2014/ngc2207/

More on the morphological classification of galaxies:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_morphological_classification

Image credit: NGC 2207 and IC 2163 ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/M. Kaufman https://goo.gl/lLgu0O CC BY 4.0 https://goo.gl/hNRHCd

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NGC-2207 and IC-2163 Colliding Spiral Galaxies

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured many amazing Universe pictures such as the one shown above. The above picture shows the NGC-2207 spiral galaxy about to collide and merge with the IC-2163 spiral galaxy. However don't assume that this collision and merger will be over in the blink of an eye. It is estimated that the two spiral galaxies will take about 1 billion years to merge and form an elliptical galaxy! NGC-2207, the larger galaxy will pull out stars and other stellar material from IC-2163, the smaller galaxy. These two galaxies are about 80 million light years away from the Earth in the direction of the Canis Major constellation. Universe pictures of colliding galaxies attracted a lot of attention when they were first released.