Bright Star Knots in NGC 4038
Explanation:
This galaxy is having a bad millennium. In fact, the past 100 million
years haven't been so good, and probably the next billion or so should
be quite tumultuous.
NGC
4039 was a normal
spiral galaxy, minding its own business, when
NGC 4038 crashed into it.
The evolving wreckage, known as the
"
Antennae",
is pictured above. As
gravity
pulls each galaxy apart, clouds of gas slam into each other and
bright blue knots are formed. These knots are large clusters of stars imbedded in
vast regions of
ionized
hydrogen gas. The high abundance of relatively dim star clusters is quite unlike
our
Milky Way's globular cluster system,
though. Perhaps some of these
young star clusters will go on to form
globular clusters, while others
will disperse through close gravitational encounters.
The
above
picture is centered around the larger of the
two interacting galaxies: NGC 4038.
The diagonal streak across the upper left is unrelated to the
colliding galaxies. The
color contrast
in the above three-color mosaic was chosen to highlight extended features.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
