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APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Peculiar Galaxies of Arp 273
Explanation: The spiky stars in the foreground of this sharp cosmic portrait are well within our own Milky Way Galaxy . The two eye-catching galaxies lie far beyond the Milky Way , at a distance of over 300 million light-years. Their distorted appearance is due to gravitational tides as the pair engage in close encounters . Cataloged as Arp 273 (also as UGC 1810), the galaxies do look peculiar , but interacting galaxies are now understood to be common in the universe. In fact, the nearby large spiral Andromeda Galaxy is known to be some 2 million light-years away and approaching the Milky Way. Arp 273 may offer an analog of their far future encounter . Repeated galaxy encounters on a cosmic timescale can ultimately result in a merger into a single galaxy of stars. From our perspective, the bright cores of the Arp 273 galaxies are separated by only a little over 100,000 light-years. The release of this stunning vista celebrates the 21st anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope in orbit.
| Date | April 21, 2011 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Credit: NASA , ESA , and the Hubble Heritage Team ( STScI / AURA ) |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |