A Universe Rose from Two Interacting Galaxies

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Two galaxy The distorted spirals combine to form a beautiful universal rose in this image recorded by the Hubble Telescope. Known as Arp 273, this pair of galaxies is one of the ‘weird’ galaxies, archived by astronomer Halton Arp in the 1960s and reissued to add to the warmth of the week that Valentine’s Day is celebrated within, February 14, 2022. Arp 273 located in the constellation Andromeda, 350 million light years away from Earth.

The outer arm of the larger spiral appears to have been pulled into a large ring around the galaxy — a characteristic astronomers often see in pairs of galaxies where one galaxy is moving through the other. Even so the ring around this galaxy is not right in the center. That led to the notion that the smaller galaxy had fallen into the larger one, but the kamikaze dive was not a head-on collision.

The collision also appears to have displaced the inner arm of the larger galaxy relative to the rest of the galaxy, while the smaller galaxy is stretched out, with the two tail ends split apart at either end.

Interactions between galaxies are thought to create the birth of stars. In larger galaxies, a spiral of new stellar births is seeded along the outer spiral arms, where clusters of bright, blue stars appear to sparkle. The star formations of smaller galaxies, on the other hand, appear to be concentrated in their bright centers.

The two interacting galaxies, Arp 273, were recorded by the Hubble Telescope in 2011 from the Andromeda constellation. hubblesite.org

Like the galaxy pair Arp 273, most galaxies do not live in isolation. Meeting each other becomes an important part of the process of growth and development of galaxies. By observing how galaxies are affected by the attractive forces between them, scientists astronomer could better understand how galaxies evolved and how the universe evolved.

HUBBLESITE

Also read:
Something Weird Is Sending Radio Waves From The Heart Of The Galaxy