Building castles in the sky, just the two of us :

@NASAHubble captures two galaxies, about 160 million light-years away from Earth, caught in a cosmic interaction. The cores of the galaxies lie about 67,000 light-years from each other, and the closest distance between the two is around 40,000 light-years. While these distances may seem vast, in galactic terms, they are close, causing a long “tidal-tail” on the galaxy to the right and likely distorting its spiral shape.

Image description: A large spiral galaxy with a smaller neighboring galaxy. The spiral galaxy is and distorted, with colorful dust. Its companion close by, at the end of a spiral arm, to the lower A long, faint tail of stars reaches up from the rig side of the spiral galaxy to the top of the image. Several small, distant galaxies are visible in the background, along with one bright star in the foreground.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Galbany, J. Dalcanton, Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

#NASA #ESA #Hubble #Space #Galaxe

[ INFORMATION DATA: 06 April 2024 ]