The Hubble mission support team has released a new image taken by the space telescope. It captures colliding galaxies.
The pair of galaxies photographed by Hubble is known under the designation Arp 107. It is located at a distance of 465 million light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Leo Minor.
The galaxy on the left side of the image is classified as a Seyfert galaxy. This means that it has an active nucleus. The supermassive black hole hidden in it absorbs a large amount of material, which is accompanied by the release of a significant amount of energy. Such galaxies differ from quasars in that they are closer to the Milky Way and their cores are not as bright. This gives astronomers the opportunity to study them entirely.
The Hubble image shows a large shining single spiral arm emerging from the core of the Seyfert galaxy and encircling it from below. Dust and gas are clearly visible in it. In the right part of the image, a second, smaller galaxy is visible.There is also an active core in its center, but there is much less material around it. Two galaxies are connected by a “bridge” consisting of gas and dust torn out by tidal forces.
Studying such objects is important for astronomers because it helps them better understand how the evolution of galaxies occurs. The published image was taken by Hubble during a program aimed at capturing galaxies that cannot be clearly attributed to either spiral or elliptical structures.
Earlier we talked about how Hubble photographed a retired galaxy.
According to https://esahubble.org
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