Sunday, October 1, 2017

Across The Universe, Cont. - Galactic Collision


(click on image to enlarge)



From NASA/ ESA, September 28, 2017This image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the galaxy NGC 4490. The scattered and warped appearance of the galaxy are the result of a past cosmic collision with another galaxy, NGC 4485 (not visible in this image).

The extreme tidal forces of the interaction between the two galaxies have carved out the shapes and properties of NGC 4490. Once a barred spiral galaxy, the outlying regions of NGC 4490 have been stretched out, resulting in its nickname of the Cocoon Galaxy.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Acknowledgements: D. Calzetti (UMass) and the LEGUS Team, J. Maund (University of Sheffield), and R. Chandar (University of Toledo)

4 comments:

DivaNewYork said...

Thanks again, Hackie, on this particular Monday when the news is horrific. What a world we live in.

W. Hackwhacker said...

Indeed. It seems like it's always "massacre, rinse, repeat" in this country/ world, Diva.

Infidel753 said...

It seems like it's always "massacre, rinse, repeat" in this country/ world

There must be billions of stars in that photo, likely with even more billions of planets altogether. It's a fair statistical chance that on at least a few of those planets, there are far worse things being done, maybe worse than we can imagine. Maybe it's for the best that we can't (yet) know.

W. Hackwhacker said...

Infidel - You're right. There are some things we wouldn't want Hubble (or Webb to come) to show me/ us. One world's depravity is enough.