Collision With Neighbor Galaxy
A collision of two galaxies has left a merged star system with an unusual appearance as well as bizarre internal motions. Astronomers believe that the oppositely rotating gas arose when M64 absorbed a satellite galaxy that collided with it, perhaps more than one billion years ago. Active formation of new stars is occurring in the shear region where the oppositely rotating gases collide, are compressed, and contract.
Particularly noticeable in the image are hot, blue young stars that have just formed, along with pink clouds of glowing hydrogen gas that fluoresce when exposed to ultraviolet light from newly formed stars. It is approximately 17 million light years from Earth. The small galaxy that impinged on its neighbour has now been almost completely destroyed, while its stars have either entered the main galaxy or scattered into intergalactic space, but signs of the collision persist in the backward motion of gas at the outer edge of M64.
Read more about this topic: Black Eye Galaxy
Famous quotes containing the words collision, neighbor and/or galaxy:
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—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“A good neighbor is a priceless treasure.”
—Chinese proverb.
“for it is not so much to know the self
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by galaxy and cedar cone,
as if birth had never found it
and death could never end it:”
—Archie Randolph Ammons (b. 1926)