A Galactic Spectacle
About This Image
Caption
A beautiful new image of two colliding galaxies has been released by NASA's Great Observatories. The Antennae galaxies, located about 62 million light-years from Earth, are shown in this composite image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), the Hubble Space Telescope (gold and brown), and the Spitzer Space Telescope (red). The Antennae galaxies take their name from the long antenna-like "arms," seen in wide-angle views of the system. These features were produced by tidal forces generated in the collision.
The collision, which began more than 100 million years ago and is still occurring, has triggered the formation of millions of stars in clouds of dust and gas in the galaxies. The most massive of these young stars have already sped through their evolution in a few million years and exploded as supernovas.
The X-ray image from Chandra shows huge clouds of hot, interstellar gas that have been injected with rich deposits of elements from supernova explosions. This enriched gas, which includes elements such as oxygen, iron, magnesium, and silicon, will be incorporated into new generations of stars and planets. The bright, point-like sources in the image are produced by material falling onto black holes and neutron stars that are remnants of the massive stars. Some of these black holes may have masses that are almost one hundred times that of the Sun.
The Spitzer data show infrared light from warm dust clouds that have been heated by newborn stars, with the brightest clouds lying in the overlapping region between the two galaxies.
The Hubble data reveal old stars and star-forming regions in gold and white, while filaments of dust appear in brown. Many of the fainter objects in the optical image are clusters containing thousands of stars.
The Chandra image was taken in December 1999. The Spitzer image was taken in December 2003. The Hubble image was taken in July 2004 and February 2005.
Credits
NASA, ESA, SAO, CXC, JPL-Caltech, and STScI;Acknowledgment: J. DePasquale (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), and B. Whitmore (STScI)
Keywords
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | NGC 4038/4039, Antennae Galaxies |
| Object Description | Interacting Galaxies |
| R.A. Position | 12h 1m 53.18s |
| Dec. Position | -18° 52' 52.4" |
| Constellation | Corvus |
| Distance | 60 million light-years (19 megaparsecs) |
| Dimensions | The composite image of the Antennae Galaxies is 34 arcminutes (59,000 light-years or 18,000 parsecs) wide. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The Spitzer Space Telescope data were courtesy of NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Z. Wang (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA). The Hubble component was from the HST proposal 10188: B. Whitmore (STScI) et al. The science team was led by J. DePasquale. Image courtesy of NASA/CXC/SAO/J. DePasquale. |
| Instrument | Spitzer>IRAC, HST>ACS/WFC ,and CXO>ACIS |
| Exposure Dates | December 24, 2003 (Spitzer),July 21, 2004 and February 16, 2005, Exposure Time: 4.9 hours (Hubble), and December 1999 - July 2002 (Chandra) |
| Filters | IRAC: 8.0 microns ACS/WFC: F435W (B), F550M (y), and F814W (I) ACIS: 0.45 - 8 keV energies |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | This image is a composite of many separate exposures made by the NASA Great Observatories. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic image. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue (CXO): 8.0 microns Yellow (HST): F435W (B) + F550M (y) + F814W (I) Red (Spitzer): 0.45 - 8 keV |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |