Working with the telescope ‘Subaru’ astronomers published a new image. It shows the ‘dance’ of two colliding galaxies.
The galaxies captured in the Subaru image are known as NGC 5257 and NGC 5258. They are located at a distance of 345 million light years from Earth towards the constellation Virgo.
NGC 5257 and NGC 5258 look like a pair of dancers holding hands. This is because the galaxies are actively interacting with each other. Gravity has pulled some of the stars and gas out of them, forming a kind of bridge connecting them. It also led to the compaction of gas and dust clouds, triggering a burst of star formation. In the Subaru image, you can see bright dots in the spiral arms of galaxies. These are the star nurseries where new stars are born.
The merger that began also provided the supermassive black holes located in the centres of NGC 5257 and NGC 5258 with a flow of ‘food’. The material formed accretion discs around them, which are powerful sources of radiation.
A pair of galaxies has approximately the same size and mass. Therefore, in the process of merger their original structures will be completely destroyed. In time, they will merge into a completely new single object: an elliptical galaxy. It is believed that in the distant future, the same fate awaits our Milky Way. In about 4.5 billion years, it will start merging with the Andromeda Galaxy, which will lead to the formation of a single elliptical galaxy.
According to subarutelescope.org
