NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection

The Antennae Galaxies
B. Whitmore (STScI [ http://www.stsci.edu]), F. Schweizer (DTM [ http://www.ciw.edu/…]), NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/]

A ground-based telescopic view (left) of the collision between the galaxies NGC4038 [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] and NGC4039 [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] reveals long arcing insect-like "antennae" of luminous matter flung from the scene of the accident [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. Investigators using the Hubble Space Telescope [ http://oposite.stsc…] to sift through the cosmic wreckage near the two galaxy cores have recently announced the discovery [ http://oposite.stsc…] of over a thousand bright young clusters of stars [ http://oposite.stsc…] - the result of a burst of star formation triggered by the collision [ http://oposite.stsc…]. The green outline shows the area covered by the higher resolution Hubble image (right). At the distance of the Antennae galaxies (about 63 million [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] light-years), a pixel in this image corresponds to about 15 light-years. Dust clouds around the two galactic nuclei [ http://oposite.stsc…] give them a dimmed and reddened appearance while the massive, hot, young stars of the newly formed clusters are blue. How do colliding galaxies evolve with time? Determining the ages of star clusters [ http://oposite.stsc…] formed in galaxy collisions can provide significant clues. The Antennae galaxies are seen in the southerly constellation Corvus [ http://www.astro.wi…constellations/Corvu s.html ].

galaxy

star clusters

collision

Antennae Galaxies

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Corvus

Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

http://antwrp.gsfc.…

SPD-APOD-ap971022