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X-Rays From Antennae Galaxie …
Title X-Rays From Antennae Galaxies
Explanation A bevy [ http://www.ojohaven.com/collectives/ ] of black holes [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/xray_sources/black_holes.html ] and neutron stars [ http://astroe.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/objects/ binaries/neutron_star_structure.html ] shine as bright, point-like sources against bubbles [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991130.html ] of million degree gas in this false-color x-ray image [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/press/00_releases/ press_081600.html ] from the orbiting Chandra Observatory [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/ index.html ]. The striking picture shows the central regions of two galaxies, NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, locked in a titanic collision some 60 million light-years distant in the constellation Corvus [ http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/constellations/ Corvus.html ]. In visible light images [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/97/34/addtlim.html ], long, luminous, tendril-like structures emanating from the wreckage lend the pair their popular moniker, the Antennae Galaxies [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap971022.html ]. Galactic collisions are now thought to be fairly common, but when they happen individual stars rarely collide. Instead gas and dust clouds merge and compress, triggering furious bursts of massive star formation [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/97/34/b.html ] with thousands of resulting supernovae. The exploding stars litter the scene with bubbles [ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/ nph-bib_query?bibcode=1999A%26A...350..230K ] of shocked hot gas and collapsed stellar cores [ http://observe.ivv.nasa.gov/nasa/space/stellardeath/ stellardeath_opening.html ]. Transfixed by this cosmic accident [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap981219.html ] astronomers watch and are beginning to appreciate [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/97/34/af3.html ] the collision-driven evolution of galaxies [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980216.html ], not unlike our own [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/97/34/af1.html ].
The Antennae Galaxies in Col …
Title The Antennae Galaxies in Collision
Explanation Two galaxies are squaring off in Corvus [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/constellations/corvus.html ] and here are the latest pictures [ http://heritage.stsci.edu/2006/46/index.html ]. When two galaxies collide [ http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=351 ], however, the stars that compose them usually do not. This is because galaxies are mostly empty space and, however bright, stars only take up only a small amount of that space. During the slow, hundred million year collision [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060630.html ], however, one galaxy can rip the other apart gravitationally, and dust [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030706.html ] and gas [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020129.html ] common to both galaxies does collide. In the above clash [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2006/46/ ] of the titans [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titans ], dark dust pillars [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050424.html ] mark massive molecular clouds [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060409.html ] are being compressed during the galactic encounter [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001102.html ], causing the rapid birth of millions of stars, some of which are gravitationally bound together in massive star clusters [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021229.html ].
Antennae Galaxies in Near-In …
Title Antennae Galaxies in Near-Infrared
Explanation What happens when galaxies collide [ http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/galaxies/ colliding.html ]? One of the best studied examples [ http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~jhibbard/n4038/n4038.html ] of the jumble of star clusters, gas, and dust clouds produced by such a cosmic train wreck [ http://www.npaci.edu/online/v4.9/ galaxies2.html ] is the interacting galaxy pair NGC 4038 / NGC 4039, the Antennae Galaxies [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap971022.html ], only sixty million light-years away. In visible light images, long, luminous tendrils of material seem to reach out from the galactic wreckage [ http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~dubinski/ antennae/antennae.html ], lending the entwined pair an insect-like appearance. But this penetrating view from the new Wide-field InfraRed Camera (WIRC [ http://astrosun.tn.cornell.edu/faculty/eiken/Projects/ WIRCstuff/wirc_performance.htm ]) attached to the Palomar Observatory's [ http://www.astro.caltech.edu/observatories/palomar/ overview.html ] 200 inch Hale telescope shows, in false-color, details of some otherwise hidden features. The large central nuclei of the two original galaxies dominate the near-infrared scene speckled with other bright sources which are themselves giant, newly formed star clusters [ http://astron.berkeley.edu/~agilbert/sscs/ antennae/ ]. Remarkably the northern (topmost) nucleus, obscured in optical images, is also revealed here to have a barred, mini-spiral structure reminiscent [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001004.html ] of many "single" spiral galaxies.
X-Rays From Antennae Galaxie …
Title X-Rays From Antennae Galaxies
Explanation A bevy [ http://www.ojohaven.com/collectives/ ] of black holes [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/xray_sources/ blackholes_stellar.html ] and neutron stars [ http://astroe.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/objects/ binaries/neutron_star_structure.html ] shine as bright, point-like sources against bubbles [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991130.html ] of million degree gas in this false-color x-ray image [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2004/antennae/ ] from the orbiting Chandra Observatory [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/ index.html ]. The striking picture spans about 80 thousand light-years across the central regions of two galaxies, NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, locked in a titanic collision some 60 million light-years away in the constellation Corvus [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2004/antennae/ animations.html ]. In visible light images [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/ 1997/34/image/p ], long, luminous, tendril-like structures emanating from the wreckage lend the pair their popular moniker, the Antennae Galaxies [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020411.html ]. Galactic collisions are now thought to be fairly common [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030812.html ], but when they happen individual stars rarely collide. Instead gas and dust clouds merge and compress, triggering furious bursts of massive star formation [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040202.html ] with thousands of resulting supernovae. The exploding stars litter the scene with bubbles of shocked gas enriched in heavy elements [ http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0401241 ], and collapsed stellar cores. Transfixed by this cosmic accident [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap981219.html ] astronomers watch and are beginning to appreciate the collision-driven evolution [ http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2004/antennae/ animations.html ] of galaxies, not unlike our own.
The Antennae Galaxies B. Whi …
Title The Antennae Galaxies B. Whitmore (STScI [ http://www.stsci.edu ]), F. Schweizer (DTM [ http://www.ciw.edu/DTM.html ]), NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/ ]
Explanation A ground-based telescopic view (left) of the collision between the galaxies NGC4038 [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970602.html ] and NGC4039 [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970506.html ] reveals long arcing insect-like "antennae" of luminous matter flung from the scene of the accident [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970223.html ]. Investigators using the Hubble Space Telescope [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/97/34/ ] to sift through the cosmic wreckage near the two galaxy cores have recently announced the discovery [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/97/34/pr.html ] of over a thousand bright young clusters of stars [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/97/34/a.html ] - the result of a burst of star formation triggered by the collision [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/97/34/anim.html ]. 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.nasa.gov/apod/ap971012.html ] light-years), a pixel in this image corresponds to about 15 light-years. Dust clouds around the two galactic nuclei [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/97/34/b.html ] 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.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/97/34/af4.html ] formed in galaxy collisions can provide significant clues. The Antennae galaxies are seen in the southerly constellation Corvus [ http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/ constellations/Corvus.html ].
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