Hubble Space Telescope is at it yet again. The latest image captured by the space telescope shows two galaxies that merging into one as their gravities pull them together. The two galaxies named NGC 5953 and NGC 5954 are so close to each other that they have a shared name as well – Arp 91.
Situated 100 million light-years away, this object demonstrates extreme conditions that can occur when two massive objects collide with each other. Both these galaxies are spiral in shape, similar to our Milky Way galaxy, but both of them appear to be different in the image. It is due to the angles at which we are viewing them from our planet. The NGC 5953 is seen straight on, while the upper right galaxy NGC 5954, can be seen from a more edge-on angle.
Forming a bigger galaxy
When galaxies merge, the outcome can be either catastrophic or it can form a new type of galaxy. Sometimes, one of the galaxies will be annihilated during the collision. Other times, the two can merge together to create a new and bigger galaxy.
“Arp 91 provides a particularly vivid example of galactic interaction,” the Hubble scientists wrote. “NGC 5953 is clearly tugging at NGC 5954, which looks like it is extending one spiral arm downward. The immense gravitational attraction of the two galaxies is causing them to interact. Such gravitational interactions are common and an important part of galactic evolution. Most astronomers think that collisions between spiral galaxies lead to the formation of another type of galaxy, known as elliptical galaxies.”
Hubble doing Hubble things
“These extremely energetic and massive collisions, however, happen on timescales that dwarf a human lifetime. They take place over hundreds of millions of years, so we should not expect Arp 91 to look any different over the course of our lifetimes!”
Gravity warps space in strange ways, and the bigger the source of gravity, the bigger will be the warping. One such example of gravity’s optical illusions is beautiful rings in space called Einstein rings, one of which was recently snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope.
