The Sleeping Beauty galaxy [ http://www.seds.org…] may appear [ http://www.pitt.edu…] peaceful at first sight but it is actually tossing and turning. In an unexpected twist, recent observations [ http://adsabs.harva…] have shown that the gas in the outer regions of this photogenic spiral [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] is rotating in the opposite direction from all of the stars! Collisions between gas in the inner and outer regions are creating many hot blue stars [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] and pink emission nebula [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. The above image [ http://heritage.sts…] was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] in 2001 and released [ http://hubblesite.o…] last week. The fascinating internal motions of M64 [ http://crux.astr.ua…], also cataloged as NGC 4826 [ http://www.ing.iac.…], are thought to be the result of a collision [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] between a small galaxy and a large galaxy where the resultant mix has not yet settled down.
Explanation
The Sleeping Beauty galaxy [ http://www.seds.org…] may appear [ http://www.pitt.edu…] peaceful at first sight but it is actually tossing and turning. In an unexpected twist, recent observations [ http://adsabs.harva…] have shown that the gas in the outer regions of this photogenic spiral [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] is rotating in the opposite direction from all of the stars! Collisions between gas in the inner and outer regions are creating many hot blue stars [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] and pink emission nebula [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. The above image [ http://heritage.sts…] was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] in 2001 and released [ http://hubblesite.o…] last week. The fascinating internal motions of M64 [ http://crux.astr.ua…], also cataloged as NGC 4826 [ http://www.ing.iac.…], are thought to be the result of a collision [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] between a small galaxy and a large galaxy where the resultant mix has not yet settled down.
