STScI-PRC1997-34b

ABOUT THIS IMAGE:

These four close-up views are taken from a head-on collision between two spiral galaxies, called the Antennae galaxies, seen at image center. The scale bar at the top of each image is 1,500 light-years across.

[Left images]
The collision triggers the birth of new stars in brilliant blue star clusters, the brightest of which contains roughly a million stars. The star clusters are blue because they are very young, the youngest being only a few million years old, a mere blink of the eye on the astronomical time scale.

[Right images]
These close-up views of the cores of each galaxy show entrapped dust and gas funneled into the center. The nucleus of NGC 4038 (lower right) is obscured by dust which dims and reddens starlight by scattering the shorter, bluer wavelengths. This is also the reason the young star clusters in the dusty regions appear red instead of blue.

This natural-color image is a composite of four separately filtered images taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), on January 20, 1996. Resolution is 15 light-years per pixel (picture element).

Object Names: NGC 4038/4039, Antennae

Image Type: Astronomical

Credit: Brad Whitmore (STScI) and NASA

NEWS RELEASE IMAGES

The above montage includes these images:

NGC 4038/4039, Antennae Image Type: Astronomical

Close-Up of Star Formation in the Antennae Galaxy (NGC 4038/4039) Image Type: Astronomical

Antennae Galaxy Closeup (NGC 4038/4039 ) Image Type: Astronomical

All images from this news release:

To access available information and downloadable versions of images in this news release, click on any of the images below:

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