30 October 2008

Hubble's Back Up!

As evidenced by the below image!

Interacting Galaxies Arp 147

On the left is what looks nearly like a normal spiral - except that the spiral has been distorted by the interaction into a ring. And also the center is bluer than normal, indicating star formation where usually the core has more older stars and star formation occurs mainly in the spiral arms. To the right is the second interacting galaxy, which is a distorted mess of blue where new stars have been triggered to form from the interaction, and a blob of colder dark gas blocking our view somewhat where it appears reddened.

1 comment:

Levinson-Axelrod said...

This was great news. That photo is excellent.