A runaway
19. galaxy
Against a stunning backdrop of thousands of galaxies, this oddlooking galaxy with the long streamer of stars appears to be racing
through space, like a runaway pinwheel firework.
Galaxy UGC 10214’s distorted shape was caused by a small
interloper, a very blue, compact, galaxy visible in the upper left
corner of the more massive Tadpole. The Tadpole resides about 420
million light-years away in the constellation Draco.
Numerous young blue stars and star clusters, spawned by the galaxy
collision, are seen in the spiral arms, as well as in the long ‘tidal’ tail of
stars. Each of these clusters represents the formation of up to about
a million stars. Two prominent clumps of young bright blue stars are
visible in the tidal tale and separated by a gap. These clumps of stars
will likely become dwarf galaxies that orbit in the Tadpole’s halo.
Behind the galactic carnage and torrent of star birth is another
compelling picture: a ‘wallpaper pattern’ of about 3000 faint
galaxies. The camera’s vision is so sharp that astronomers can
identify distant colliding galaxies, the ‘building blocks’ of galaxies, an
exquisite ‘Whitman’s Sampler’ of normal galaxies, and presumably
extremely faraway galaxies.
Credit: NASA, Holland Ford (JHU), the ACS Science Team and ESA
A deep
20. look at two
merging galaxies
The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard Hubble captured a
spectacular pair of galaxies engaged in a cele