This Hubble Space Telescope image shows ESO 185-IG013, a luminous blue compact galaxy (BCG). BCGs are nearby galaxies that show an intense burst of star formation. They are unusually blue in visible light, which sets them apart from other high-starburst galaxies that emit more infrared light. Astrophysicists study BCGs because they provide a relatively close-by equivalent for galaxies from the early universe. This means that BCGs can help scientists learn about galaxy formation and evolution that may have been happening billions of years ago.
Hubble imaged ESO 185-IG013 in ultraviolet, visible, and infrared wavelengths to reveal details about its past. Hundreds of young star clusters, many of which are younger than 100 million years, populate the galaxy. A large number of star clusters are only 3.5 million years old – relative infants compared to the timescale of our universe. Scientists predict that many of these youngest clusters will not last, since young clusters can often perish after expelling too much of their gas. The large number of young star clusters indicates that this galaxy was part of a recent galaxy collision and merger. The perturbed structure of the galaxy, which likely occurred from the violent interactions of gas and dust during the collision, is another sign. The merger supplied the system with lots of fuel for star formation, which continues to take place today.
ESO 185-IG013 also contains a tidal shell, the diffuse glow surrounding its bright center, which is a common signal of galaxy mergers. Scientists believe that in a galaxy merger, the smaller of the two interacting galaxies gets disrupted by the larger galaxy, losing most of its material. This releases the material, which then gets pulled in again by the gravity of the larger galaxy. The dense area where the material gets repositioned is called the shell, and it contains many star clusters. In addition to the shell, ESO 185-IG013 boasts a tail of gas in the northeast.
All of the stars in the system have a combined mass more than 7 billion times that of our Sun. The system is located about 260 million light-years away.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and R. Chandar (University of Toledo); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
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UGC 3912 is classified as a spiral galaxy … but you wouldn’t know it from this detailed Hubble Space Telescope image. UGC 3912’s distorted shape is typically indicative of a gravitational encounter with another galaxy. When galaxies interact – either brush up against each other’s gravitational fields or even collide – their stars, dust, and gas can be pulled into new paths. UGC 3912 might have once been an organized-looking spiral, but it looks like it’s been smudged out of shape by a giant thumb.
Fortunately, when galaxies interact, the individual stars and objects that orbit them remain whole even though their orbits can change so dramatically that the entire galaxy’s shape is altered. That’s because the distances between stars in galaxies are so vast that they don’t crash into one another, just continue serenely along their new orbits.
Astronomers are studying UGC 3912 as part of an investigation into supernovae activity – when stars at least eight times larger than our Sun explode at the end of their lives. Hubble is examining one of the several types of supernovae, a hydrogen-rich phenomenon known as Type II. Though ample Type II supernovae have been observed, they exhibit enormous diversity in their brightness and spectroscopy and are not well understood.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and C. Kilpatrick (Northwestern University); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
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The galaxy NGC 5427 shines in this Hubble Space Telescope image. It’s part of the galaxy pair Arp 271, and its companion NGC 5426 is located below this galaxy and outside of this image’s frame. However, the effects of the pair’s gravitational attraction is visible in the galactic distortion and cosmic bridge of stars seen in the lower-right region of the image.
In 1785, British astronomer William Herschel discovered the pair, which is locked in an interaction that will last for tens of millions of years. Whether they will ultimately collide and merge is still uncertain, but their mutual gravitational attraction has already birthed many new stars. These young stars are visible in the faint bridge connecting the two galaxies, located at the bottom of the image. Such a bridge provides an avenue for the two galaxies to continue sharing the gas and dust that becomes new stars. Scientists believe Arp 271 can serve as a blueprint for future interactions between our Milky Way Galaxy and our neighbor the Andromeda Galaxy, expected to happen in about 4 billion years.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and R. Foley (University of California – Santa Cruz); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
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Looking like a baseball lobbed into the depths of the universe, ESO 420-G013 is a face-on spiral galaxy and a Seyfert galaxy. Dark lanes of dust are stitched across the background glow of the galaxy’s many stars.
About 10 percent of all the galaxies in the universe are thought to be Seyfert galaxies. They are typically spiral galaxies and have very bright nuclei, the result of supermassive black holes at their centers accreting material that releases vast amounts of radiation. The cores of these “active galaxies” are brightest when observing light outside the visible spectrum. Often galaxies with these kinds of active galactic nuclei are so bright that the host galaxy itself cannot be seen, washed out by the glow of its nuclei, but Seyfert galaxies are distinctive because the galaxy itself is also visible. In the case of ESO 420-G013, we can enjoy the galaxy’s almost perfectly round disk, brighter core, and whirled filaments of dark dust.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope observed ESO 420-G013 as part of a study of Luminous Infrared Galaxies, or LIRGs, which are known to be extremely bright in the infrared part of the spectrum. Galactic interactions trigger new regions of star formation in LIRGs, causing them to be highly luminous in infrared light.
Credit: NASA/ESA/A. Evans (University of Virginia)/Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
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A pair of small, interacting galaxies shine in this new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. The larger of the two galaxies is named NGC 5410 and was discovered in 1787 by British astronomer William Herschel. It spans 80,000 light-years across and has a bright white bar of stars at its center. It is also a spiral galaxy with a medium-sized nucleus and spread-out arms. NGC 5410 contains many young, blue star clusters, especially along its arms.
The smaller of the two galaxies is called UGC 8932 or PGC 49896 and has a diameter of 60,000 light-years. It has a bright blue bar of stars at its core, indicating that it contains younger stars. Its shape is irregular, likely due to distortions from NGC 5410’s gravitational pull.
The pair lies 180 million light-years away in the Canes Venatici constellation and can be seen from the northern hemisphere. Between the two galaxies lies a stream of stars, almost like a bridge, caused by their interaction.
Hubble imaged this galaxy in 2023 to examine if interactions between dwarf galaxies create reservoirs of particles that fuel star formation.
Credit: NASA/ESA/D. Bowen (Princeton University)/Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
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Tags: NASA Hubble ESA Hubble Space Telescope telescope space telescope cosmos universe space cosmic astronomy galaxy galaxies interacting galaxies colliding galaxies NGC 5410 UGC 8932 PGC 49896