NASA - Hubble Peers at a Cosmic Optical Illusion

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Hubble Peers at a Cosmic Optical Illusion

At first glance, this Hubble picture appears to capture two space giants entangled in a fierce celestial battle, with two galaxies entwined and merging to form one. But this shows just how easy it is to misinterpret the jumble of sparkling stars and get the wrong impression — as it’s all down to a trick of perspective.
By chance, these galaxies appear to be aligned from our point of view. In the foreground, the irregular dwarf galaxy PGC 16389 — seen here as a cloud of stars — covers its neighboring galaxy APMBGC 252+125-117, which appears edge-on as a streak. This wide-field image also captures many other more distant galaxies, including a quite prominent face-on spiral towards the right of the picture.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Luca Limatola

NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com

Astronomy: Firestorm of Star Birth in Galaxy Centaurus A

Hi My Friends: AL VUELO DE UN QUIND EL BLOG., Hubble's panchromatic vision, stretching from ultraviolet through near-infrared wavelengths, reveals the vibrant glow of young, blue star clusters and a glimpse into regions normally obscured by the dust.Firestorm of Star Birth in Galaxy Centaurus A
Resembling looming rain clouds on a stormy day, dark lanes of dust crisscross the giant elliptical galaxy Centaurus A.

Hubble's panchromatic vision, stretching from ultraviolet through near-infrared wavelengths, reveals the vibrant glow of young, blue star clusters and a glimpse into regions normally obscured by the dust.The warped shape of Centaurus A's disk of gas and dust is evidence for a past collision and merger with another galaxy. The resulting shockwaves cause hydrogen gas clouds to compress, triggering a firestorm of new star formation. These are visible in the red patches in this Hubble close-up.

At a distance of just over 11 million light-years, Centaurus A contains the closest active galactic nucleus to Earth. The center is home for a supermassive black hole that ejects jets of high-speed gas into space, but neither the supermassive black hole or the jets are visible in this image.

This image was taken in July 2010 with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3.Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble CollaborationAcknowledgment: R. O'Connell (University of Virginia) and the WFC3 Scientific Oversight Committee. NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com

ayabaca@yahoo.com