A galaxy with swirling arms
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was released yesterday by the science team that operates the Hubble Space Telescope. It captures a galaxy about 520 million light years away that appears to have been reshaped due to a galaxy merger.
That merger somehow distorted the disk of the inner galaxy, the brightest area, while also producing two sweeping spiral streams in the surrounding periphery.
Despite its unusual shape, astronomers did not choose to study this galaxy. From the caption:
This observation is a gem from the Galaxy Zoo project, a citizen science project involving hundreds of thousands of volunteers from around the world who classified galaxies to help scientists solve a problem of astronomical proportions: how to sort through the vast amounts of data generated by telescopes. A public vote selected the most astronomically intriguing objects for follow-up observations with Hubble. CGCG 396-2 is one such object, imaged here by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys.
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Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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Click for full image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was released yesterday by the science team that operates the Hubble Space Telescope. It captures a galaxy about 520 million light years away that appears to have been reshaped due to a galaxy merger.
That merger somehow distorted the disk of the inner galaxy, the brightest area, while also producing two sweeping spiral streams in the surrounding periphery.
Despite its unusual shape, astronomers did not choose to study this galaxy. From the caption:
This observation is a gem from the Galaxy Zoo project, a citizen science project involving hundreds of thousands of volunteers from around the world who classified galaxies to help scientists solve a problem of astronomical proportions: how to sort through the vast amounts of data generated by telescopes. A public vote selected the most astronomically intriguing objects for follow-up observations with Hubble. CGCG 396-2 is one such object, imaged here by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Galaxy Zoo Project !!!
http://zoo1.galaxyzoo.org/Project.aspx
Love it. Will keep an eye on it.
This merged galaxy will now have two black holes moving relative to each other and its combined stars? Would astronomers be able to see the path of each black hole in the form of emptiness in the wake? And explosive activity each time the black hole encounters a star?
Stunning. The interplay helps mix things for life perhaps
Is a galaxy just like a solar system in that all the stars are in an elliptical orbit around the center or core of the galaxy? If the two black holes of two merging galaxies themselves merge, would the resulting increased core mass cause the orbiting stars to collapse into the center?
I used to do a lot of Galaxy Zoo and even assigned my astronomy classes to classify at least 500 galaxies each. Some of them actually enjoyed the assignment since they could do it on their smartphone.
@Steve, no the gravity at a distance from the merged black holes is the same. As an example, if we were to compact our Sun down into a black hole, all of the planets in our solar system would effectively continue in their orbits as normal. The overall mass and gravity does not change, only the density.
“… As an example, if we were to compact our Sun down into a black hole, all of the planets in our solar system would effectively continue in their orbits as normal. …”
yes, if the sun was a black hole, the Earth would still orbit as it does now. But if a 2nd sun mass black hole merges with our sun black hole, would that cause all the orbiting planets to collapse into the now 2x sized black hole?
In the case of these two galaxies which have merged, what happens to the black holes of each galaxy? The attraction between the two will be tremendous, no, and they will themselves merge? Which will cause stars which had been orbiting the 1x sized black hole to now collapse into the 2x sized hole.
Steve Richter Asked: “In the case of these two galaxies which have merged, what happens to the black holes of each galaxy? The attraction between the two will be tremendous, no, and they will themselves merge?”
The black holes may not be close enough to each other to collide any time soon. On a galactic scale, they are pretty small. As for the addition of another galaxy’s worth of mass, whenever galaxies collide they come out of it pretty much messed up.