Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has snapped the best ever image
of the Antennae Galaxies. Hubble has released images of these stunning
galaxies twice before, once using observations from its Wide Field and
Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) in 1997, and again in 2006
from the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). Each of Hubble’s images of
the Antennae Galaxies has been better than the last, due to upgrades
made during the famous servicing missions, the last of which took place in 2009.
The galaxies — also known as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 — are locked in a
deadly embrace. Once normal, sedate spiral galaxies like the Milky Way,
the pair have spent the past few hundred million years sparring with one
another. This clash is so violent that stars have been ripped from
their host galaxies to form a streaming arc between the two. In wide-field images
of the pair the reason for their name becomes clear — far-flung stars
and streamers of gas stretch out into space, creating long tidal tails
reminiscent of antennae.
This new image of the Antennae Galaxies shows obvious signs of chaos.
Clouds of gas are seen in bright pink and red, surrounding the bright
flashes of blue star-forming regions — some of which are partially
obscured by dark patches of dust. The rate of star formation is so high
that the Antennae Galaxies are said to be in a state of starburst, a
period in which all of the gas within the galaxies is being used to form
stars. This cannot last forever and neither can the separate galaxies;
eventually the nuclei will coalesce, and the galaxies will begin their
retirement together as one large elliptical galaxy.
This image uses visible and near-infrared observations from Hubble’s
Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), along with some of the previously-released
observations from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).
Source: ESA/Hubble - Space Telescope
