posted by
martyb
on Friday January 30 2015, @07:05PM
from the no-governmental-oversight-required dept.
from the no-governmental-oversight-required dept.
NGC 7714 is a spiral galaxy at 100 million light-years from Earth — a relatively close neighbour in cosmic terms.
The galaxy has witnessed some violent and dramatic events in its recent past. Tell-tale signs of this brutality can be seen in NGC 7714's strangely shaped arms, and in the smoky golden haze that stretches out from the galactic centre.
So what caused this disfigurement? The culprit is a smaller companion named NGC 7715, which lies just out of the frame of this image — but is visible in the wider-field DSS image. The two galaxies [1] drifted too close together between 100 and 200 million years ago, and began to drag at and disrupt one another’s structure and shape.
Get yer white-hot Hubble images here.
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The Tell-Tale Signs of a Galactic Merger
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday January 30 2015, @07:26PM
In 4 billion years, we're next [wikipedia.org].
Of course, by that point we're coming up on the sun going red giant on us, so if whatever we evolve into hasn't gotten off this rock by then, we're cooked anyways.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday January 30 2015, @07:36PM
Yeah, but the big risk of galaxies colliding to the solar system is being flung out of our galaxy and becoming a lonely star. The number of actual physical stellar collisions are estimated to be quite quite low. ~~~~
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday January 30 2015, @07:44PM
"and this clear Andromeda threat is why I asked Congress to double the Pentagon's budget and enact special powers so we may protect the American People"
(Score: 2, Funny) by Megahard on Friday January 30 2015, @08:39PM
Astronomical donations to all politicians involved in approving the merge.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday January 31 2015, @04:01AM
The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) is a better example of interacting galaxies, or the Mice (IC 819/20), and even the Antennae Galaxies (NGC 4038/9). So is the news only that Hubble took a look at this one?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday January 31 2015, @06:32AM
"Distance: 100 million light years"
"This image from the Digitized Sky Survey shows galaxy NGC 7714 and its surroundings."
"In this image, the bright star you can see on the left is around a billion times closer than the galaxy."
Therefore the bright star is .1 light years away, making it the closest stellar object to us by a factor of 40 apart from Sol itself!
Or they fucked up something.
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