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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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