Colliding Galaxies in
Stephan's Quintet
From NASA’s Astronomy
Picture of the Day
Will either of these
galaxies survive? In what might be dubbed as a semi-final round in a galactic
elimination tournament, the two spirals of NGC 7318 are colliding.
The featured
picture was created from images taken by the Hubble Space
Telescope.
When galaxies crash into
each other, many things may happen including gravitational distortion, gas condensing
to produce new
episodes of star formation, and ultimately the two galaxies combining into
one.
Since these two galaxies
are part of Stephan's
Quintet, a final round of battling galaxies will likely occur over the next
few billion years with the eventual result of many scattered stars and one
large galaxy.
Quite possibly, the remaining galaxy will
not be easily identified with any of its initial galactic components.
Stephan's Quintet was
the first identified galaxy group, lies about 300 million light years away, and
is visible
through a moderately-sized telescope toward the
constellation of the Winged Horse (Pegasus).
Image Credit: Hubble Legacy Archive, NASA, ESA; Processing
& Copyright: Jose
Jimenez Priego
