Hubble Space Telescope Shares Striking Image of 3 Galaxies Appearing to Interact With Each Other

From the perspective of the solar system, the image resembles the Star Trek starship USS Enterprise.

By Edited by Gadgets 360 Newsdesk | Updated: 31 January 2022 14:12 IST

Hubble Space Telescope Shares Striking Image of 3 Galaxies Appearing to Interact With Each Other

NASA said it's not clear whether the galaxy on the lower left is even interacting with the other two

Highlights

Hubble is a joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA)
It has been in service for over three decades since its launch in 1990
It has captured billions of stunning images and shared many of them

NASA's Hubble telescope is known to capture spectacular glimpses of spatial objects as it is placed strategically and has an unrestricted view of the universe. It recently released an image of a group of three galaxies, collectively known as NGC 7764A. Placed in the constellation Phoenix, these galaxies are about 425 million light-years from the Earth. The image shows the galaxies interacting with one another, causing two galaxies on the upper right to appear like a starship known as the USS Enterprise from Star Trek, an American science fiction media franchise.

The long tails of stars and gas, extending from the galaxies on the upper right, appear as if they have been hit at great speed by the one at the lower left and thrown into disarray. But that is not to be. Galaxies interact over very long periods of time and they rarely collide. NASA said it is not clear whether the galaxy on the lower left is even interacting with the other two. Because they are so relatively close that they appear to be interacting.

Live long and prosper ????

This week's #HubbleFriday image shows a galactic trio called NGC 7764A. The pair of galaxies interacting in the upper right might even resemble the Starship Enterprise… a least, from our solar system's perspective!

Learn more: https://t.co/w4tGJIS0lM pic.twitter.com/j4ZDQLpYHS
— Hubble (@NASAHubble) January 28, 2022

The three galaxies featured in this image are referred to as NGC 7764A1, NGC 7764A2, and NGC 7764A3, individually. NASA stated in a blog post that the “rather haphazard” naming was probably because many astronomical catalogues were compiled well over 100 years ago. And thus, many astronomical objects have names that sound familiar to the name of other objects and likely causes confusion. The use of modern technology only recently made standardising scientific terminology much easier.

Hubble Space Telescope, a joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), has been in service for over three decades since its launch in 1990. It has captured billions of stunning images and shared many of them over time. Recently, it shared an image of a galaxy from the constellation Vela, located about 115 million light-years away from Earth. ESA said Vela was originally part of a larger constellation, called Argo Navis after the fabled ship Argo from Greek mythology.

Why is 5G taking so long? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.