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A Galactic Spectacle

A Galactic Spectacle

A beautiful new image of two colliding galaxies has been released by NASA's Great Observatories. The Antennae galaxies, located about 62 million light-years from Earth, are shown in this composite image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), the Hubble Space Telescope (gold and brown), and the Spitzer Space Telescope (red). The Antennae galaxies take their name from the long antenna-like "arms," seen in wide-angle views of the system. These features were produced by tidal forces generated in the collision.

The collision, which began more than 100 million years ago and is still occurring, has triggered the formation of millions of stars in clouds of dust and gas in the galaxies. The most massive of these young stars have already sped through their evolution in a few million years and exploded as supernovas.

The X-ray image from Chandra shows huge clouds of hot, interstellar gas that have been injected with rich deposits of elements from supernova explosions. This enriched gas, which includes elements such as oxygen, iron, magnesium, and silicon, will be incorporated into new generations of stars and planets. The bright, point-like sources in the image are produced by material falling onto black holes and neutron stars that are remnants of the massive stars. Some of these black holes may have masses that are almost one hundred times that of the Sun.

The Spitzer data show infrared light from warm dust clouds that have been heated by newborn stars, with the brightest clouds lying in the overlapping region between the two galaxies.

The Hubble data reveal old stars and star-forming regions in gold and white, while filaments of dust appear in brown. Many of the fainter objects in the optical image are clusters containing thousands of stars.

The Chandra image was taken in December 1999. The Spitzer image was taken in December 2003. The Hubble image was taken in July 2004 and February 2005.

About the Object

  • R.A. Position
    R.A. PositionRight ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position.
    12h 1m 53.18s
  • Dec. Position
    Dec. PositionDeclination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position.
    -18° 52' 52.4"
  • Constellation
    ConstellationOne of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears.
    Corvus
  • Distance
    DistanceThe physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs.
    60 million light-years (19 megaparsecs)
  • Dimensions
    DimensionsThe physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky.
    The composite image of the Antennae Galaxies is 34 arcminutes (59,000 light-years or 18,000 parsecs) wide.

About the Data

  • Data Description
    Data DescriptionProposal: A description of the observations, their scientific justification, and the links to the data available in the science archive.
    Science Team: The astronomers who planned the observations and analyzed the data. "PI" refers to the Principal Investigator.
    The Spitzer Space Telescope data were courtesy of NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Z. Wang (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA). The Hubble component was from the HST proposal 10188: B. Whitmore (STScI) et al. The science team was led by J. DePasquale. Image courtesy of NASA/CXC/SAO/J. DePasquale.
  • Instrument
    InstrumentThe science instrument used to produce the data.
    Spitzer>IRAC, HST>ACS/WFC ,and CXO>ACIS
  • Exposure Dates
    Exposure DatesThe date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time.
    December 24, 2003 (Spitzer),July 21, 2004 and February 16, 2005, Exposure Time: 4.9 hours (Hubble), and December 1999 - July 2002 (Chandra)
  • Filters
    FiltersThe camera filters that were used in the science observations.
    IRAC: 8.0 microns ACS/WFC: F435W (B), F550M (y), and F814W (I) ACIS: 0.45 - 8 keV energies
  • Object Name
    Object NameA name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.
    NGC 4038/4039, Antennae Galaxies
  • Object Description
    Object DescriptionThe type of astronomical object.
    Interacting Galaxies
  • Release Date
    August 5, 2010
  • Science Release
    A Galactic Spectacle
  • Credit
    NASA, ESA, SAO, CXC, JPL-Caltech, and STScI; Acknowledgment: J. DePasquale (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), and B. Whitmore (STScI)

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A Galactic Spectacle
Color Info
Color InfoA brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented.

This image is a composite of many separate exposures made by the NASA Great Observatories. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic image. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue (CXO): 8.0 microns Yellow (HST): F435W (B) + F550M (y) + F814W (I) Red (Spitzer): 0.45 - 8 keV

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Last Updated
Mar 28, 2025
Contact
Media

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov