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Astronomy Picture of the Day: Linking Spiral Arms

apod.nasa.gov — Linking spiral arms, two large colliding galaxies are featured in this Hubble Space Telescope view, part of a series of cosmic snapshots released to celebrate the Hubble's 18th anniversary. Recorded in astronomer Halton Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies as Arp 272, the pair is otherwise known as NGC 6050 and IC 1179.

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  • hschulsinger, on 04/30/2008, -2/+5Beautiful photo, captured at a time before tidal forces have started to tear both galaxies apart. If we're still around in a few million years, we may be able to observe that cataclysm.
    • B1663r, on 04/30/2008, -2/+2Wrong time scales.... In the half a billion years since animals evolved to differentiate themselves from plants, the earth has only completed 1/2 an orbit around the Milky Way. Galaxy evolution takes billions of years....
      • twertyto, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2The orbital period of the solar system with respect to the galactic center is roughly 240 million years.
    • DaviDTC, on 04/30/2008, -0/+1I know I wont be around.
  • Bactame, on 04/30/2008, -1/+2ESO 593 available on the Hubble Heritage link listed on this page shows a pretty torn up pair of galaxies...why wait a few million years.
  • freezejeans, on 04/30/2008, -4/+1Imagine being on a planet right in the middle of that collision...crazy.
    • fyngyrz, on 04/30/2008, -2/+1No, dead.
    • twertyto, on 04/30/2008, -2/+7Nothing would happen likely. Galaxies are roughly 10 times smaller than their average separations. Solar systems on the other hand are as much as a million times smaller than their average separations so interactions are far less common and in fact are considered quite rare. Even if two galaxies were to mix together the average separations between stars would only go down by a factor of two and that wouldn't influence much. Interstellar matter on the other hand is a totally different story since it has a continuous distribution across the galactic disk. When galaxies merge together, observationally, you see the interstellar medium greatly affected and in many case it results in a burst of star formation in the entire merged mess often referred to as a starburst galaxy.
      • freezejeans, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2Ah, thanks...guess I was imagining the visuals from being right in the middle, but it's good to learn about the physical interactions as well.
      • fyngyrz, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1What you left out, though, is that in the middle of your average galaxy, conditions aren't survivable for biologicals like us even under normal (non-colliding) circumstances. For instance, the center of the Milky way is absolutely unsurvivable. When two galaxies collide, the center of that collision is a hell of radiation. Totally unsurvivable.
  • paulsel, on 04/30/2008, -5/+3Oops! Our Milky Way has less mass than Andromeda - we are about 100,000 light years across; they are some 150,000 light years across. Therefore we are being drawn to them, not the other way around. Another bit of useless information from an avid amateur astronomer.
    • somacybin, on 04/30/2008, -1/+2very interesting. mind if i ask where you found this information out? do you have a link i could look at?
    • strictnein, on 04/30/2008, -1/+3We are both being drawn towards a point in space. Andromeda is not standing still while we are moving towards them just because they are larger. That's not how gravity works.
      • strictnein, on 04/30/2008, -1/+2Meant to add: if you put a bowling ball and a tennis ball a foot apart in space, they will both move until they meet, it's just the tennis ball will move farther.
      • wesniles, on 04/30/2008, -2/+2wheres bill nye with the visual?
    • Catalyste, on 04/30/2008, -0/+1That's far from useless information! You happen to like Astronomy as much as I do. Seeing a photo like that is frightening.
  • Happy_Phantom, on 04/30/2008, -2/+4I think it's... romantic.
  • masterm1nd, on 04/30/2008, -3/+4Dugg for not being badastronomy spam.
  • kanvas, on 04/30/2008, -5/+4The rarely observed scrotal galaxy.
  • watcht, on 04/30/2008, -1/+7Looks like the happy one (left galaxy) is going "Hey Buddy, how you doing?" to the sad right one.
  • mooseontheloose, on 04/30/2008, -5/+4haha what homos. more like GAYlaxies am i rite?
  • Stepoo, on 04/30/2008, -2/+1Buried for being inaccurate. What really happened was some asshole from HR decided to sit in a pile of sugar and then jump on a Xerox machine.
  • ensta2, on 04/30/2008, -0/+3That is such a beautiful image... amazing view from afar.
  • Catalyste, on 04/30/2008, -0/+2Awesome picture....sad though. That small Galaxy is going to be over taken by the bigger one. I've only seen documentaries on colliding galaxies, but never a real photo.
  • mrbrianxyz, on 04/30/2008, -2/+1spiral balls
  • zekeycat, on 04/30/2008, -1/+1cosmic titties
  • DteK, on 04/30/2008, -2/+6Anyone else see boobs?
  • novenator, on 04/30/2008, -1/+2The odds of a solar system actually colliding with one from the other galaxy are quite small. 99.9999% of space is, well, just that, open space. Quite cool photo!
  • stabbingkittens, on 05/01/2008, -1/+1om nom nom nom
  • diggystardust, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2The Astronomy Picture of the Day seems to always deliver.

    Thanks to all who keep posting these.
  • annsid, on 05/01/2008, -0/+0You know what is the most amazing thing about this colliding pair of galaxies? It is that where their spiral arms collide at the top of the image, in the 12 o'clock position, there seems to be a third small galaxy superimposed on the arms. Maybe this galaxy has actually formed because it is being fed by a stream of gas from two opposite directions? Wowzers, you know!
  • hjhhjh, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1Actually a Spiral arm is not what youd think. There are actually stars everwhere in the vicinity but dark cold dust and molecular clouds are in spirals covering up parts of this galaxy.. This makes it appear that the stars exist in spirals with empty space between them. In reality the spirals themselves are dark dust. .. Kind of like saying a Zebra is white with black stripes when its actualy black with white stripes.
  • Cornea, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1I've started adding these interacting galaxies to this Google Sky map - http://keirclarke.googlepages.com/sky2.htm
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