NASA Shares Stunning Image of Interacting Galaxies 200 Million Light-Years Away

NASA said the larger of the two interacting galaxies contains a supermassive black hole and a bright ring of star clusters.

By Edited by Gadgets 360 Newsdesk | Updated: 28 February 2022 13:53 IST

NASA Shares Stunning Image of Interacting Galaxies 200 Million Light-Years Away

Photo Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Evans, R. Chandar

Arp 298, as captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope

Highlights

NGC 7469 and IC 5283 galaxies were captured by Hubble
Together, these galaxies are called Arp 298
Hubble will soon be succeeded by James Webb Space Telescope

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stellar image of two interacting galaxies some 200 million light-years away from Earth. The pair is located in the Pegasus constellation, named after a winged horse from Greek mythology. The image shared by NASA on its Instagram page shows a large spiral galaxy (NGC 7469), and its diminutive companion (IC 5283). NGC 7469 is host to an active, supermassive black hole and a bright ring of star clusters.

Together, these galaxies are called Arp 298. The “Arp” in this pair's name signifies that they are listed in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies compiled by the astronomer Halton Arp. The Atlas is a gallery of weird and wonderful galaxies containing peculiar structures. NASA said the larger of the two interacting galaxies in Arp 298 contains a supermassive black hole, and a bright ring of star clusters, which is an area of intense star formation.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by NASA (@nasa)

Scientists study galaxies like these to understand how galaxies with supermassive black holes at their centre can create stars. NASA says if these interacting galaxies start to collide, they will approach one another and conduct a delicate "dance". The gas in these galaxies will begin to lose angular momentum and funnel toward the centre, triggering additional star formation at an accelerated rate.

NASA said that this image of Arp 298 was captured using seven different filters from two of Hubble's instruments — the Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys.

[Sponsored] Samsung Galaxy S24: The Ultimate Camera Phone With Smarter On-Device AI

The agency added that this system will be one of the first galaxies to be observed by Hubble's successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, which is currently undergoing mirror alignment process in space. James Webb is likely to begin science operations later this year.

How Does the Cat's Eye Nebula Sound Like? NASA Post Offers an Idea

Can Realme 9 Pro and 9 Pro+ win their respective segments? 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.