This week’s image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a dramatic collision of three different galaxies. The trio in the constellation of Boötes is in the process of merging and will eventually form a single large galaxy.
A spectacular trio of merging galaxies in the constellation of Bootes are the focus of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. These three galaxies will be placed on a collision course and will eventually merge into a single larger galaxy, distorting each other’s spiral structure through mutual gravitational interactions. An unrelated foreground galaxy appears to float peacefully near this scene, and the smeared outlines of much more distant galaxies are visible in the background. ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Sun
“This colliding trio — known to astronomers as SDSSCGB 10189 — is a relatively rare combination of three large star-forming galaxies, separated by just 50,000 light-years,” write Hubble scientists. “While that may sound like a safe distance, it makes them extremely close neighbors for galaxies. Our own galactic neighbors are much further away; Andromeda, the closest large galaxy to the Milky Way, is more than 2.5 million light-years from Earth.”
Galactic collisions, when two or more galaxies collide, are not uncommon in the universe. The results of these violent collisions can vary, either the galaxies merge into a new larger galaxy, as is the case here, or one galaxy annihilates another.
Although stars from every galaxy are unlikely to collide, the heart of most galaxies contains a supermassive black hole due to the large spacing between each star, and the merger of these giant beasts can emit gravitational waves and send stars flying in strange directions.
Normally, when a larger galaxy collides with a smaller satellite galaxy, the larger galaxy will strip stars and material from the smaller galaxy and retain most of its shape. In other cases, the tremendous gravitational forces of a collision can pull one or both galaxies into strange shapes.
Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, will collide with the nearby Andromeda galaxy in about 4 billion years. This collision could also affect another nearby galaxy, the Triangulum Galaxy, which could also be pulled into orbit around the merger before eventually colliding as well.
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Source: www.digitaltrends.com
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