I wanna dance with somebody

 

  I wanna dance with somebody:

This dance between two galaxies captured by @NASAHubble. Interacting gravitationally toward one another, these galaxies lie about 500 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Tucana. ⁣

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The interacting galaxy pair is known as Arp-Madore, which is a collection of peculiar galaxies. What is peculiar about this group? There are actually three galaxies, not just two. If you look at the smaller galaxy’s upper arm on the lower right corner of the image, you can spot the knot-like structure. As seen from Earth’s perspective, astronomers have found it challenging to differentiate whether an object in space is one, or multiple objects, or lying in front of another. Astronomers discovered the third knot-like galaxy by analyzing the speed and direction which revealed that the redshift, the wavelength of light is seen “shifted” towards the red part of the spectrum making it its own entity. ⁣

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Image description: Two spiral galaxies. Each glows brightly in the center, where a bar stretches from side to side. The upper one is rounder, and its arms form two thin rings. The lower galaxy is flatter and its arms make one outer ring; a dusty knot atop its upper arm marks out a third object. Gravity is pulling gas and dust together where the galaxies come close. A number of small galaxies surround them on a black background.⁣

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Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA, J. Dalcanton, Dark Energy Survey/ DOE/ FNAL/ NOIRLab/ NSF/ AURA; Acknowledgement: L. Shatz

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30 October 2023