#merging galaxies

[zespaceblog]

Webb Captures the Penguin and Her Egg

Marking the 2nd year of science from the JWST, this beautiful image of Arp 142, otherwise known as the Penguin and Egg, interacting galaxies that have made this amazing shape that our brains just can't help but to turn into something more earth bound.

I particularly enjoy the comet like structure in the top, which isn't a comet at all, rather a coincidence of a star in our galaxy aligning at the end of another galaxy, one that is 100 million light years closer to us, than the penguin.

Interestingly the egg although looking far smaller than the penguin is of the same mass, and being an elliptical galaxy it doesn't have any of the arms and dust/gas lanes that could be flung outwards as the spiral galaxy.

The eye of the penguin is the core of the merging galaxy, and the feet are made up of far distant galaxies superimposed.

Arp 142 lies 326 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra.

[zespaceblog]

The Butterfly Galaxy

Of course, this isn't a single galaxy, not quite yet ! It's two spiral galaxies about to merge with each other, but it's the angle's of both from our location that makes this particularly amazing, as it almost appears as if the two are untouched by the interaction.

Yet, the Supermassive black holes at the heart of both are around 20,000 light years apart, that's less distance that you are sitting from Sag A* .

What we do know is that the halo of both galaxies has started to merge, and that this is kick-starting a large amount of star formation.

However, not every spiral galaxy that looks to intersect, is actually merging, above is an example of one spiral just being in front of another, with the distance between them being enough that no actual gravitational interaction is possible.

[inkyvoids]

Earth's nearest supermassive black hole pair lies in the wreckage of a galactic collision

Scientists observed the aftermath of two galaxies that smashed together around a billion years ago. It harbors the closest supermassive blac

Astronomers have discovered a duo of monster black holes hiding in the wreckage of a cosmic collision that occurred between two spiral galaxies about a billion years ago. They're located around 90 million light-years away from us. The team identified this pairing, or "binary system," of supermassive black holes while examining the chaotic heart of the galaxy merger, known as  NGC 7727,  with the Gemini South telescope. The current state of NGC 7727 is of particular interest to astronomers because it offers  us a hint of what the Milky Way will look like in around 4.5 billion years, when it collides with its neighboring spiral galaxy Andromeda .

[inkyvoids]

Hubble Space Telescope reveals an unexpected galaxy trio

A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope reveals a galaxy overshadowed by its larger, merging companions.  Located roughly 500 million light-years from Earth lies a galactic pair collectively known as Arp-Madore 2339-661. The two galaxies are in the process of merging, according to a statement from the European Space Agency.  One galaxy is known as NGC 7733 — the smaller galaxy seen in the lower right — and the other is NGC 7734 — the larger galaxy in the upper left. However, hidden in the star-studded spiral arm of NGC 7733 is yet another galaxy, referred to as NGC 7733N. Until now, this realm has appeared to be obscured by dark dust. Using the Hubble data, however, astronomers were able to discern a knot-like structure with a notable red glow, standing out in comparison to the bright blue stars of NGC 7733.

[zespaceblog]

Arp 87 - The Dancing Galaxies

In what may look like a very slow motion dance, NGC 3808A holds hands with his partner NGC 3808B 330 Million light years from us in the constellation of Leo.

But this dance has a deadly outcome, as currently the stretched out arm covers 70,000 light years, it's grip will now pull the already irregular and messed up B towards it and ultimately to a merger.

While it's deadly to B, it's not death for the stars, they will find a new home in the newly merged galaxy. Already the interaction has created a large blue look due to the star formation, but after the merger and the setting out, the spiral nature may move to a more elliptical one, although that is dependent to some extent on the size of the supermassive black holes at the heart of both galaxies.

[timespanner]

NASA just found a question mark in space. What exactly is it?

The object is far outside our galactic neighborhood, possibly billions of light-years away. But astronomers have seen similar objects closer

[zespaceblog]

ARP 299 - The Galactic Smashup

Like most of the ARP catalogue, it features galaxies interacting as they either fly by each other or smash into each other, destined for an eventual merger, such as this one.

They are particularly important because they are active teachers of how galaxies evolve and ultimately, what lies ahead for our very own Milky Way.

In the image above, you can see two active regions in X-Ray, which represents the supermassive black holes that belonged to the original two galaxies, but that will ultimately merge.

One of those black holes is significantly brighter than the other, the one to the right, showing it's actively being fed with material from the crash, while the other not so much.

This image is a combination of Chandra and NUStar, X-Ray and high energy particles which is the coloured overlay, which is pointing significantly towards the right side black hole as being active.

The above image shows radio waves (red), near IR in green and UV in blue. The UV is very common in areas of vast star birth, and shows the right side to be incredibly active. Star formation is accelerated in galaxy smash ups as vast amount of dust and gas smash into each other causing shock waves and areas of dense material that's perfect for star formation, although much of it is short lived, giving birth to giant blue stars that last a few million years and then collapse to form black holes or neutron stars, one day to feed further the central black hole, already busy consuming.

[chibinotan]

Bright Merger