Crash of the titans

NGC 520 — also known as Arp 157 — looks like a galaxy in the midst of exploding. In reality, it’s the exact opposite. Two enormous spiral galaxies are crashing into each other, melding and forming a new conglomerate. This happens slowly, over millions of years — the whole process started some 300 million years ago. The object, about 100 000 light-years across, is now in the middle stage of the merging process, as the two nuclei haven’t merged yet, but the two discs have. The merger features a tail of stars and a prominent dust lane. NGC 520 is one of the brightest interacting galaxies in the sky and lies in the direction of Pisces (the Fish), approximately 100 million light-years from Earth.

This image was taken by the ESO Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera attached to the 3.6-metre telescope at La Silla in Chile. It is based on data obtained through B, V, R and H-alpha filters.

Herkunftsnachweis:

ESO

Über das Bild

ID:potw1048a
Typ:Beobachtung
Veröffentlichungsdatum:29. November 2010 10:00
Größe:959 x 959 px

Über das Objekt

Name:Arp 157, NGC 520
Typ:Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Interacting
Entfernung:100 Million Lichtjahre
Constellation:Pisces
Kategorie:Galaxies

Bildformate

Großes JPEG
190,1 KB

Bildschirm-Hintergrundbilder

1024x768
159,3 KB
1280x1024
267,3 KB
1600x1200
399,9 KB
1920x1200
477,7 KB
2048x1536
637,2 KB

Koordinaten

Position (RA):1 24 34.75
Position (Dec):3° 47' 30.00"
Field of view:5.04 x 5.04 arcminutes
Orientierung:Die Nordrichtung liegt 0.9° rechts zur Vertikale

Farben & Filter

SpektralbereichWellenlängeTeleskop
Optisch
B
445 nmESO 3.6-metre telescope
EFOSC2
Optisch
V
551 nmESO 3.6-metre telescope
EFOSC2
Optisch
H-alpha
1.63 μmESO 3.6-metre telescope
EFOSC2
Optisch
R
658 nmESO 3.6-metre telescope
EFOSC2