A Fascinating Astronomical Phenomenon Captured by the Hubble Telescope
On February 17, the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) unveiled images from the Hubble Space Telescope, showcasing a trio of galaxies in the Boötes constellation that are merging. This process will ultimately lead to the formation of a larger galaxy.
Image of 3 merging galaxies captured by the Hubble telescope. (Photo: NASA).
“The collision of this trio – named SDSSCGB 10189 by astronomers – is a relatively rare combination of three star-forming galaxies located just 50,000 light-years apart,” NASA scientists reported.
This distance may sound significant, but in terms of galaxies, it is relatively close. Our neighboring galaxies are much farther away. The Andromeda galaxy, the largest galaxy near the Milky Way, is over 2.5 million light-years from Earth.
Galactic collisions occur when two or more galaxies come close together. This phenomenon is not uncommon in the universe. The results of these massive collisions can vary; they may merge to form a new, larger galaxy, as seen in the Hubble images, or one galaxy may annihilate another.
The stars within each galaxy are unlikely to collide due to the vast distances separating them. Most galaxies contain a supermassive black hole at their center, and the merger of these colossal entities can produce gravitational waves and cause stars to be thrown off course.
Typically, if a large galaxy collides with a smaller one, the larger galaxy will strip stars and matter from the smaller galaxy while maintaining much of its shape. In other cases, the immense gravitational forces involved in the collision can stretch one or both galaxies into bizarre shapes.
The galaxy that contains our Earth, the Milky Way, is set to collide with the Andromeda galaxy in about 4 billion years. This collision may also involve the nearby Triangulum galaxy.
