APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Arp 94
Explanation: This telescopic snapshot records a cosmic moment in the tumultuous lives of large spiral galaxy NGC 3227 and smaller elliptical NGC 3226. Catching them in the middle of an ongoing gravitational dance , the sensitive imaging also follows faint tidal star streams flung from the galaxies in their repeated close encounters. Over 50 million light-years distant toward the constellation Leo, the pair's appearance has earned them the designation Arp 94 in the classic catalog of peculiar galaxies . But such galactic collisions and mergers are now thought to represent a normal course in the evolution of galaxies, including our own Milky Way. Spanning about 90,000 light-years, similar in size to the Milky Way, NGC 3227 is recognized as an active Seyfert galaxy with a central supermassive black hole.
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| Date | October 9, 2013 |
|---|---|
| Credit |
Image Credit & Copyright: Ken Crawford ( Rancho Del Sol Obs. ) Collaboration: David Martinez-Delgado (MPIA, IAC), et al. |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |
