Posted on 10/10/2013 9:26:04 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Explanation: This telescopic snapshot records a cosmic moment in the tumultuous lives of large spiral galaxy NGC 3227 and smaller elliptical NGC 3226. Catching them in the middle of an ongoing gravitational dance, the sensitive imaging also follows faint tidal star streams flung from the galaxies in their repeated close encounters. Over 50 million light-years distant toward the constellation Leo, the pair's appearance has earned them the designation Arp 94 in the classic catalog of peculiar galaxies. But such galactic collisions and mergers are now thought to represent a normal course in the evolution of galaxies, including our own Milky Way. Spanning about 90,000 light-years, similar in size to the Milky Way, NGC 3227 is recognized as an active Seyfert galaxy with a central supermassive black hole.
(Excerpt) Read more at asterisk.apod.com ...
[Credit & Copyright: Ken Crawford (Rancho Del Sol Obs.); Collaboration: David Martinez-Delgado (MPIA, IAC), et al.]
Looks very lonely out there.
Back in the 1970s my dad had a subscription to Scientific American. I recall an article on “colliding galaxies” where they had a number of photos of galaxies approaching, colliding, and then after they passed. They also used computer program to simulate the gravitational effects of two galaxies as they went through the process. A fascinating article for me to read when I was 15 or so.
I wish I still had that edition.
Alas, I don’t find archival stuff earlier than 2004 on the sciam website.
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