Source: Spitzer NewsletterA pair of dancing galaxies appears dressed for a cosmic masquerade in a new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The infrared picture shows what looks like two icy blue eyes staring through an elaborate, swirling red mask. These "eyes" are actually the cores of two merging galaxies, called NGC 2207 and IC 2163, which recently met and began to twirl around each other. The "mask" is made up of the galaxies' twisted spiral arms. Dotted along the arms, like strings of decorative pearls, are dusty clusters of newborn stars. This is the first time that clusters of this type, called "beads on a string" by astronomers, have been seen in NGC 2207 and IC 2163.
NGC 2207 and IC 2163 are located 140 million light-years away in the Canis Major constellation. The two galaxies will meld into one in about 500 million years, bringing their masquerade days to an end.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment