Post-collision images of two galaxies
Click for original image.
Using both the Hubble and Webb space telescopes, astronomers have now produced multi-wavelength images of the galaxies NGC 2207and IC 2163, as shown to the right.
Millions of years ago the smaller galaxy, IC 2163, grazed against the larger, NGC 2207, resulting today in increased star formation in both galaxies, indicated by blue in the Hubble photo. From the caption of the combined images:
Combined, they are estimated to form the equivalent of two dozen new stars that are the size of the Sun annually. Our Milky Way galaxy forms the equivalent of two or three new Sun-like stars per year. Both galaxies have hosted seven known supernovae, each of which may have cleared space in their arms, rearranging gas and dust that later cooled, and allowed many new stars to form.
The two images to the left leaves the Hubble and Webb separate, making it easier to see the different features the different wavelengths reveal. From this caption:
In Hubble’s image, the star-filled spiral arms glow brightly in blue, and the galaxies’ cores in orange. Both galaxies are covered in dark brown dust lanes, which obscure the view of IC 2163’s core at left. In Webb’s image, cold dust takes centre stage, casting the galaxies’ arms in white. Areas where stars are still deeply embedded in the dust appear pink. Other pink dots may be objects that lie well behind these galaxies, including active supermassive black holes known as quasars.
The largest and brightest pink area in the Webb image, on the bottom right and a blue patch in the Hubble image, is where a strong cluster of star formation is presently occurring.
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Click for original image.
Using both the Hubble and Webb space telescopes, astronomers have now produced multi-wavelength images of the galaxies NGC 2207and IC 2163, as shown to the right.
Millions of years ago the smaller galaxy, IC 2163, grazed against the larger, NGC 2207, resulting today in increased star formation in both galaxies, indicated by blue in the Hubble photo. From the caption of the combined images:
Combined, they are estimated to form the equivalent of two dozen new stars that are the size of the Sun annually. Our Milky Way galaxy forms the equivalent of two or three new Sun-like stars per year. Both galaxies have hosted seven known supernovae, each of which may have cleared space in their arms, rearranging gas and dust that later cooled, and allowed many new stars to form.
The two images to the left leaves the Hubble and Webb separate, making it easier to see the different features the different wavelengths reveal. From this caption:
In Hubble’s image, the star-filled spiral arms glow brightly in blue, and the galaxies’ cores in orange. Both galaxies are covered in dark brown dust lanes, which obscure the view of IC 2163’s core at left. In Webb’s image, cold dust takes centre stage, casting the galaxies’ arms in white. Areas where stars are still deeply embedded in the dust appear pink. Other pink dots may be objects that lie well behind these galaxies, including active supermassive black holes known as quasars.
The largest and brightest pink area in the Webb image, on the bottom right and a blue patch in the Hubble image, is where a strong cluster of star formation is presently occurring.
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.
I find it curious that they were able to maintain the majority of their shape. Could it be because they both rotate in opposite to each other?
Max-
as I understand it; stars in our galaxy for example, are approximately 4 light-years apart, on average.
I assume this relative ’emptiness’ holds for other galaxies.
That is correct, but in most pictures of galaxies colliding, one or both are scattered and misshapen even from close flyby. In this case both galaxies maintain their shape. You can even see the trailing arm of the smaller one still holding it’s shape as it passes near the galactic core of the larger one… I was curious if other such collisions in the same circumstance may have rotational velocities from rotating opposite of each other that keeps the galaxy collision influence to a minimum? (The inertia of traveling in the same direction on a different trajectory?) The picture just looks too coherent for a collision to have taken place without gravitational influences tearing things apart as most often pictured in other such close in counters.
Max: My own guess as to why these galaxies appear unchanged is twofold.
First, they only grazed each other, according to the website. This was not direct impact, more like a fender-bender. Thus, the reshaping shouldn’t be as severe as seen in other examples.
Second, it apparently occurred relatively recently, only “millions” of years ago. It is quite possible there has not been time for galaxy distortion to set in.
They may collide again–forming an elliptical much later, as Milkomeda is supposed to do.
Milky Way / Andromeda Galaxy Collision Simulation
Videos From Space (2012)
https://youtu.be/4disyKG7XtU
1:16