SAN FRANCISCO, iNews.id – Picture telescope Hubble the latest shows a strange pairing of a spiral galaxy and its tiny companion. This pair of interacting galaxies is collectively known as Arp 86.
The larger spiral galaxy is NCG 7753 and the smaller, visible at bottom left is NGC 7752. They are close enough that the smaller NGC 7752 almost touches one of the galaxies.
The spiral arm NCG 7753, which is why they were told one name, of which Arp stands for Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, a list of unusual galaxies compiled by astronomer Halton Arp in 1966.
This list of unusual galaxies includes spiral galaxies with three arms, or with only one arm, or with one heavy arm, multiple interaction galaxies. The full catalog is available on the Caltech website, but for an easier-to-read version of the list with examples of different types of galaxies, you can refer to the Wikipedia listing in detail.
As for Arp 86, besides being weird, it can help astronomers understand how stars form in cold gaseous environments.
“Hubble observed Arp 86 as part of a larger effort to understand the relationship between young stars and the cold gas clouds in which they form,” the Hubble scientists wrote.
Editor: Dini Listiyani
