The Hubble astronomers have released an absolutely beautiful photo taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of Arp 107, a pair of galaxies in the midst of a collision.
Arp 107 is located approximately 465 million light-years away in Leo Minor, a small and faint constellation in the northern celestial hemisphere.
The colliding galactic duo is part of a catalogue of 338 galaxy pairs known as the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, which was compiled in 1966 by the American astronomer Halton Arp.
Arp 107 consists of two galaxies: the larger galaxy UGC 5984 and the smaller companion MCG+05-26-025.
Also known as APG 107A, UGC 5984 is classified as a Seyfert 2 galaxy. MCG+05-26-025, or LEDA 32628, is an elliptical galaxy.
“UGC 5984 (in the left of the image) is an extremely energetic galaxy type known as a Seyfert galaxy, which house active galactic nuclei at their cores,” Hubble astronomers said in a statement.
“Seyfert galaxies are notable because despite the immense brightness of the active core, radiation from the entire galaxy can be observed.”
“This is evident in this image, where the spiraling whorls of the whole galaxy are readily visible.”
“The smaller companion, MCG+05-26-025, is connected to the larger by a tenuous-seeming ‘bridge,’ composed of dust and gas.”
The new image of Arp 107 is a composite of separate exposures acquired by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).
The galaxy pair was observed by Hubble as part of an observing program that specifically sought to fill in an observational ‘gap,’ by taking limited observations of members of the Arp catalogue.
“Part of the intention of the observing program was to provide the public with images of these spectacular and not-easily-defined galaxies,” the astronomers said.
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