Hubble revealed an amazing image showing three galaxies. A space telescope has captured the exact moment two galaxies are about to merge, leaving the smaller one hidden in the chaos. If this is not clear to you, we will explain it to you here.
Interacting pair of galaxies NGC 7733 is the smallest, bottom right, and NGC 7734 is top left. These two galaxies are also known as Arp-Mador 2339-661 because they belong to the Arp-Mador catalog of peculiar galaxies. They are located approximately 500 million light years from Earth.
The third galaxy is currently known as NGC 7733N.. It’s not easy to spot, but if you look closely at the smaller galaxy’s upper arm (bottom right), you can see a small, knotty structure. You can identify it because it glows a different color than the hand, more similar to the core of the other two, and is hidden by dark dust.
Yes, it could easily pass as part of NGC 7733. However, analyzing the speeds – and looking at the direction – of the node gives a clue that it is another entity, explained the European Space Agency, which coordinates Hubble’s work with NASA.
Three Hubble galaxies will merge
Hubble’s trio of galaxies demonstrates one of the many challenges facing observing astronomers: figuring out whether an astronomical object is truly one or more, simply unnoticeable from Earth’s perspective.
The three galaxies are located quite close to each other, in the constellation Tucana. As you can see in this image, they gravitationally interact with each other. In fact, some scientists call them the “fusion group.” This means that they will eventually become one.
Hubble has provided us with unique discoveries since it was launched into orbit in 1990. In May of this year, to celebrate the 33rd anniversary of his work, his team of astronomers published a photograph of a nebula found in the Perseus molecular cloud. It is located approximately 960 light years from Earth.
Source: Hiper Textual
