News in Science

Celestial penguin the result of galactic destruction

StarStuff image of the week So, what do you see in this Hubble Space Telescope image, a porpoise or a penguin?

Amateur astronomers have used both nicknames to describe this pair of interacting galaxies known as Arp 142 that are located 326 million light-years away in the southern constellation Hydra.

The top galaxy displaying the graceful blue and red tinged curve of a celestial dolphin or porpoise is NGC 2936.

It was once a normal spiral galaxy, very similar to our own Milky Way.

Below is the golden orb-like elliptical galaxy NGC 2937, which looks like a giant egg.

When the two are paired together, they bear a striking resemblance to the loving, nurturing scene of a penguin guarding its egg.

However, in reality it's a scene of violence and destruction.

NGC 2936 is being twisted, distorted and ripped apart by the powerful gravitational effects of NGC 2937.

The once graceful spiral arms of NGC 2936 are now a cascade of blue and red, as its vast clouds of glowing gas and dust are compressed and torn apart by NGC 2937's tidal forces.

This interaction is triggering 'star burst' the rapid birth of thousands of new stars, visible as NGC 2936's sparkling electric blue streaks and knots. What was once NGC 2936's bright central bulge now forms the 'eye' of the penguin.

The egg-like elliptical galaxy NGC 2937 gets its golden colour from its huge population of old yellow and red stars. It has no young blue stars, which would be evidence of recent star formation.

Over the next billion years NGC 2936 and NGC 2937 will continue to interact in a celestial ballet that will slowly change their appearances, disrupting their gas, dust and stars, until the pair gradually merge into a single galaxy.

This image combines visible, red and infrared light from Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 3.

Hosted by Stuart Gary, StarStuff takes us on a weekly journey across the universe. StarStuff reports on the latest news and discoveries in science, with a special focus on astronomy, space sciences and cosmology.



