Stars from colliding galaxies are flowing together in a newly enhanced imagery from the prestigious NASA space telescope.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been working hard for more than three decades, and scientists have never lost their fascination with the vast artifacts of this region. Take, for example, this “river of astronomy,” as NASA officials say in a statement released Wednesday (May 17), occurring at the intersection of four small galaxies inside Hickson Compact Group 31 (HCG 31).
The image was first released in 2010 and was redesigned to show the star-forming regions. The blue in the picture represents the visible blue light, where the light of a few hot, young blue stars, especially on the small colliding galaxies called the galaxy NGC 1741 (top right of the navel). Red reflects light to nearby infrared.
“Another small, cigar-shaped galaxy to the right of [NGC 1741] combines their dance with a series of small, blue stars that connect three,” NASA said. The fourth component, HGC 31, is visible in the lower left. There is also a bright star in the path of the quartet galaxies, which you can see in the center of the picture.
Hubble has been photographing galaxies in detail for generations, and many of the images released in recent weeks have focused on the colliding galaxies. For example, in February, the system released the universe known as Arp 298, which covers 200 million light-years from Earth in the Pegasus galaxy.
Arp 298 is also one of the first scientific objectives to unveil the new James Webb Space Telescope starting in the summer of 2022, Hubble officials said. The 10 billion observatories are in their final working weeks and can provide sharp images in many configurations; they will soon be tested in hot and cold climates and nearby objects of the solar system.
Hubble will be assisting Webb for a few years in the extraordinary task of a new observatory, which is to understand the emergence of the universe. The galaxies formed at the beginning of the universe will be studied to show how that group differed from most galaxies today.
Another significant difference from the beginning of the universe’s history is the lack of heavy nutrients and the related quantities of hydrogen and helium. But planning for the transformation of galaxies and the transformation of dark matter, which is not audible but perceived by their influence on nearby objects, will be at the center of Webb’s work set.
