:strip_icc()/i.s3.glbimg.com/v1/AUTH_59edd422c0c84a879bd37670ae4f538a/internal_photos/bs/2022/n/P/VJcgteTkaL4uVaGWVu2A/low-res-noirlab2210a.jpg.png?fit=%2C&ssl=1)
Two galaxies, NGC 1512 and NGC 1510, have been in the process of merging for 400 million years. This interaction triggered a wave of star formation, according to details seen in an unpublished image released on Tuesday (3).
–
The board (look above) is also filled with bright Milky Way stars seen in the foreground, with a background littered with even more distant galaxies.
–
- What the gigantic ‘magnetic tunnel’ that surrounds the solar system looks like, according to researchers
- Astronomical calendar: events to watch in the sky in 2022
–
–
Telescope captures ‘dance’ of merging galaxies 400 million years ago
– –
The “dance” was recorded at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, located about 80 km from La Serena, a Chilean town near the Atacama Desert. According to the researchers, the stream of starry light stretching between the two signals that the larger galaxy is “enveloping” the smaller one — evidence that there is a gravitational interaction between them.
–
As a result, the connection between NGC 1512 and NGC 1510 affected the rate of star formation of both, according to the scientists, and they may merge into a single, even larger galaxy in the future. They are located 60 million light-years from Earth, with 1 light-year corresponding to about 9.5 trillion km.
–
–
Víctor M. Blanco Telescope, located at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Chile — Photo: NOIRLab/NSF/CTIO/AURA/D.Munizaga
– –
The image was taken by the 4-meter Víctor M. Blanco telescope, located at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.
–
It houses one of the world’s best performing wide field of view cameras: the Dark Energy Camera or, in English, Dark Energy Camera (DECam). It was created to lead the Dark Energy Surveya six-year space observation project (2013 to 2019) that involved more than 400 scientists from 25 institutions and seven countries.
–
The international effort sought to map galaxies, detect supernovae and discover patterns of cosmic structure – a search for details about the dark energy that is accelerating the expansion of the universe.
– – –
