Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
This curious galaxy — only known by the seemingly random jumble of letters and numbers 2MASX J16270254+4328340 — has been captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope dancing the crazed dance of a galactic merger. The galaxy has merged with another galaxy leaving a fine mist, made of millions of stars, spewing from it in long trails.
Despite
the apparent chaos, this snapshot of the gravitational tango was
captured towards the event’s conclusion. This transforming galaxy is
heading into old age with its star-forming days coming to an end. The
true drama occurred earlier in the process, when the various clouds of
gas within the two galaxies were so disturbed by the event that they
collapsed, triggering an eruption of star formation.
This flurry of activity exhausted the vast majority of the galactic
gas, leaving the galaxy sterile and unable to produce new stars.
As
the violence continues to subside, the newly formed galaxy’s population
of stars will redden with age and eventually begin drop off one by one.
With no future generations of stars to take their place, the galaxy
thus begins a steady descent towards death.
