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A Tale of Two Galaxies

A Tale of Two Galaxies
The color and shape of a galaxy is largely controlled by gas flowing through an extended halo around it. All modern simulations of galaxy formation find that they cannot explain the observed properties of galaxies without modeling the complex accretion and "feedback" processes by which galaxies acquire gas and then later expel it after chemical processing by stars. Hubble spectroscopic observations show that galaxies like our Milky Way recycle gas while galaxies undergoing a rapid starburst of activity will lose gas into intergalactic space and become "red and dead."
  • Release Date
    November 17, 2011
  • Science Release
    NASA’s Hubble Confirms that Galaxies Are the Ultimate Recyclers
    Read the release
  • Credits
    Illustration: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI); Science: NASA, ESA, N. Lehner (University of Notre Dame), T. Tripp (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), and J. Tumlinson (STScI)

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Last Updated
Feb 17, 2025
Contact
Media

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

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