The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured this image of a group of three galaxies, collectively known as NGC 7764A.
This image shows NGC 7764A, a group of three galaxies located 425 million light-years away in the constellation of Phoenix. The color image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Victor M. Blanco 4-m Telescope in the near-infrared and optical parts of the spectrum. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / J. Dalcanton, Dark Energy Survey / DOE / FNAL, DECam / CTIO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / ESO / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.
“NGC 7764A is a fascinating example of just how awkward astronomical nomenclature can be,” Hubble astronomers said.
“The three galaxies are individually referred to as NGC 7764A1, NGC 7764A2 and NGC 7764A3, and just to be really difficult, an entirely separate galaxy, named NGC 7764, sits in the skies about a Moon’s distance (as seen from Earth) away.”
“This naming makes more sense when we consider that many of the catalogues for keeping track of celestial bodies were compiled well over 100 years ago, long before modern technology made standardizing scientific terminology much easier.”
“As it is, many astronomical objects have several different names, or might have names that are so similar to other objects’ names that they cause confusion.”
NGC 7764A is located approximately 425 million light-years away in the constellation of Phoenix.
The larger galaxy in the trio, NGC 7764A1 (otherwise known as ESO 293-8, Aguero 83 and LEDA 72762), was discovered on October 4, 1836 by the English astronomer John Herschel.
“The two galaxies in the upper right of the image appear to be interacting with one another — indeed, the long trails of stars and gas extending from them both give the impression that they have both just been struck at great speed, thrown into disarray by the bowling-ball-shaped galaxy to the lower left of the image,” the astronomers said.
“In reality, however, interactions between galaxies happen over very long time periods, and galaxies rarely collide head-on with one another.”
“It is also unclear whether the galaxy to the lower left is actually interacting with the other two, although they are so relatively close in space that it seems possible that they are.”
“By happy coincidence, the collective interaction between these galaxies have caused the two on the upper right to form a shape, which from our Solar System’s perspective, resembles the starship known as the USS Enterprise from Star Trek!”
Source link: https://www.sci.news/astronomy/hubble-trio-galaxies-10486.html
