[NASA] NASA’s Webb Provides Another Look Into Galactic Collisions

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NASA’s Webb Provides Another Look Into Galactic Collisions

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This composite image of Arp 107 reveals a wealth of information about the star-formation and how these two galaxies collided hundreds of million years ago (full image below).

Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

Smile for the camera! An interaction between an elliptical galaxy and a spiral galaxy, collectively known as Arp 107, seems to have given the spiral a happier

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thanks to the two bright “eyes” and the wide semicircular “smile.” The region has been observed before in infrared by NASA’s

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in 2005, however NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope displays it in much higher resolution. This image is a composite, combining observations from Webb’s

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and

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.

Image A: Arp 107 (NIRCam and MIRI Image)

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This composite image of Arp 107, created with data from the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), reveals a wealth of information about the star-formation and how these two galaxies collided hundreds of million years ago.

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

NIRCam highlights the stars within both galaxies and reveals the connection between them: a transparent, white bridge of stars and gas pulled from both galaxies during their passage. MIRI data, represented in orange-red, shows star-forming regions and dust that is composed of soot-like organic molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. MIRI also provides a snapshot of the bright nucleus of the large spiral, home to a supermassive ****** *****.

Image B: Arp 107 (MIRI Image)

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This image of Arp 107, shown by Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), reveals the supermassive ****** ***** that ***** in the center of the large spiral galaxy to the right. This ****** *****, which pulls much of the dust into lanes, also display’s Webb’s characteristic diffraction spikes, caused by the light that it emits interacting with the structure of the telescope itself.

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

The spiral galaxy is classified as a Seyfert galaxy, one of the two largest groups of

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, along with galaxies that host

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. Seyfert galaxies aren’t as luminous and distant as quasars, making them a more convenient way to study similar phenomena in lower energy light, like infrared.

This galaxy pair is similar to the

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, one of the first interacting galaxies that Webb observed. Arp 107 may have turned out very similar in appearance to the Cartwheel, but since the smaller elliptical galaxy likely had an off-center collision instead of a direct hit, the spiral galaxy got away with only its spiral arms being **********. 

The collision isn’t as bad as it sounds. Although there was star formation occurring before, collisions between galaxies can compress gas, improving the conditions needed for more stars to form. On the other hand, as Webb reveals, collisions also disperse a lot of gas, potentially depriving new stars of the material they need to form.

Webb has captured these galaxies in the process of merging, which will take hundreds of millions of years. As the two galaxies rebuild after the chaos of their collision, Arp 107 may lose its smile, but it will inevitably turn into something just as interesting for future astronomers to study.

Arp 107 is located 465 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo Minor.

Video: Tour the Arp 107 Image

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Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Danielle Kirshenblat (STScI)

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (********* Space Agency) and CSA (********* Space Agency).

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for this article from the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Media Contacts

Laura Betz – laura.e*****@*****.tld, Rob Gutro – *****@*****.tld
NASA’s

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, Greenbelt, Md.

Matthew Brown – *****@*****.tld, Christine Pulliam – *****@*****.tld

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, Baltimore, Md.

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Last Updated

Sep 17, 2024

Editor

Marty McCoy

Contact

Laura Betz

laura.e*****@*****.tld

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