Hubble Space Telescope Spots a Galactic Collision as a Spiral Galaxies Arms are Twisted

First Posted: Jan 30, 2015 09:47 AM EST
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The Hubble Space Telescope has captured two galaxies in the midst of what appears to be a galactic collision. Scientists have found that the spiral galaxy NGC 7714 has drifted too close to another nearby galaxy and that the merger is causing its spiral arms to twist drastically out of shape.

NGC 7714 is a spiral galaxy that's about 100 million light-years from Earth, which is relatively close in cosmic terms. The Hubble telescope picked up the strangely shaped arms of this galaxy in addition to a smoky golden haze that stretches out from the galaxy's center.

The cause of these features lie in the smaller companion galaxy, NGC 7715. About 100 to 200 million years ago, these galaxies drifted too close to one another. The immense gravity from these galaxies then began to drag at and disrupt one another's structure and shape. The end result is a ring and two long tails of stars that have emerged from NGC 7714, which has created a type of starry bridge between the two galaxies. This bridge actually acts as a pipeline and funnels material from NGC 7715 toward its larger companion. In other words, one galaxy seems to be slowly "eating" the other.

NGC 7714, the smaller galaxy, is a typical Wolf-Rayet starburst galaxy. This is due to the stars within it; a large number of the stars are Wolf-Rayet stars, which are extremely hot and bright and begin their lives with dozens of times the mass of the sun.

The findings reveal a bit more about how galaxies that drift too closely to one another interact. More specifically, it reveals how own galaxy actually "gobbles" another one; over time, these two galaxies will likely merge into one object.

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