Astronomy Picture of the Day
Posted By admin On April 21, 2011 @ 10:10 pm In Photo Essays | Comments Disabled
The spiky stars in the foreground of this sharp cosmic portrait are well within our own Milky Way Galaxy. The two eye-catching galaxies lie far beyond the Milky Way, at a distance of over 300 million light-years.
[1]Peculiar Galaxies of Arp 273
Credit: NASA [2], ESA [3], and the Hubble Heritage [4] Team (STScI [5] / AURA [6])
Explanation: The spiky [7] stars in the foreground of this sharp cosmic portrait [8] are well within our own Milky Way Galaxy [9]. The two eye-catching galaxies lie far beyond the Milky Way [10], at a distance of over 300 million light-years. Their distorted appearance is due to gravitational tides as the pair engage in close encounters [11]. Cataloged as Arp 273 [12] (also as UGC 1810), the galaxies do look peculiar [13], but interacting galaxies are now understood to be common in the universe. In fact, the nearby large spiral Andromeda Galaxy is known to be some 2 million light-years away and approaching the Milky Way. Arp 273 may offer an analog of their far future encounter [14]. Repeated galaxy encounters on a cosmic timescale [15]can ultimately result in a merger into a single galaxy of stars. From our perspective, the bright cores of the Arp 273 galaxies are separated by only a little over 100,000 light-years. The release of this stunning vista celebrates [16] the 21st anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope in orbit.
Visit the NASA/JPL website to view more Astronomy Pictures of the Day [17]
Article printed from Recorder Online: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com
URL to article: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/2011/04/21/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-60/
URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/arp273_hst.jpg
[2] NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/
[3] ESA: http://www.spacetelescope.org/
[4] Hubble Heritage: http://heritage.stsci.edu/
[5] STScI: http://www.stsci.edu/
[6] AURA: http://www.aura-astronomy.org/
[7] spiky: http://spider.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/kaspar/obs_mishaps/images/int_reflection2.html
[8] this sharp cosmic portrait: http://heritage.stsci.edu/2011/11/index.html
[9] Milky Way Galaxy: http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/galaxy.html
[10] beyond the Milky Way: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070712.html
[11] in close encounters: http://burro.cwru.edu/JavaLab/GalCrashWeb/backgrnd.html
[12] as Arp 273: http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/html/im0011.html
[13] peculiar: http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/frames.html
[14] far future encounter: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/galaxy/2002/09/
[15] cosmic timescale: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060323.html
[16] stunning vista celebrates: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2011/11/
[17] Astronomy Pictures of the Day: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
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