Posted on 07/15/2011 4:12:15 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Explanation: NGC 3314 is actually two large spiral galaxies which just happen to almost exactly line up. The foreground spiral is viewed nearly face-on, its pinwheel shape defined by young bright star clusters. But against the glow of the background galaxy, dark swirling lanes of interstellar dust appear to dominate the face-on spiral's structure. The dust lanes are surprisingly pervasive, and this remarkable pair of overlapping galaxies is one of a small number of systems in which absorption of light from beyond a galaxy's own stars can be used to directly explore its distribution of dust. NGC 3314 is about 140 million light-years (background galaxy) and 117 million light-years (foreground galaxy) away in the multi-headed constellation Hydra. The background galaxy would span nearly 70,000 light-years at its estimated distance. A synthetic third channel was created to construct this dramatic new composite of the overlapping galaxies from two color image data in the Hubble Legacy Archive.
(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...
[Credit: Hubble Legacy Archive, ESA, NASA; Processing - Martin Pugh]
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Beautiful
I wonder what the two galaxies look like to each other. Maybe its only like the Andromeda galaxy looks like to us but then maybe its a dominant force in the sky, especially if you are on the best side of the galaxy for the view.
We’re kinda lucky that our solar system is situated in a part of the galaxy that has a view.
Have Freud ‘splain dat!
Actually, Darwin.
Yes, it’s good to be near the outer edge of our galaxy, we get to see stuff outward without too much interference.
I did some research, the Andromeda galaxy is 2.5 million lightyears away, but these two galaxies are 23 million LYs apart so I don’t expect them to have a very good view of each other.
It would have been cool to have another galaxy filling up your sky broadside. We would have been amazed when we finally figured out we were part of another galaxy just like the one we have been looking at for thousands of years assuming we were part of it!
Yes! Areas with this kind of view cost about 300,000 heklars more than those with obstructed views. Location, Location, Location.
Living in the suburbs has it’s advantages in many ways. and thank God that we are not in the inter galaxacy; no black holes or red giants to contend with. Very few, if any, novas to contend with in the middle of the night. Even the number of comets roaring through the neighborhood is relatively uncommon.
Is there a relationship between the density of an Oort cloud and star type?
I have so much to learn about astronomy...
An Oort Clouds density is directly proportional to its IQ. :)
Luckily we have a very intelligent one.
It will depend almost entirely on the orientation of the star type. Usually there are little enough in common between star types and Oort Clouds to preclude any type of relationship from developing, unless of course if they are reared in adjoining neighborhoods. Relationships still do sometimes develope but are usually frowned upon by elder Oort clouds
If everything started from a Big Bang singular point (or some such Creation), and everything expands outward from there, it seems odd that two whole galaxies would find themselves intersecting — it seems more sensible that everything is diverging. Must be there is some turbulence in the expansion that causes the collisions, or perhaps some galaxies along a given radius from the original point move at different velocities, and an outer one was caught up to by in inner one moving faster.
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