A stunning image of four galaxies smashed together in one tiny corner of the universe

[n2doc]

When you see multiple galaxies right on top of each other, like in this image, it's usually an optical illusion, and the galaxies are actually millions of light-years apart. That's true of one of the galaxies in this photo...but only one.
There are five galaxies in this image - the two bright spots of yellow right next to each other are two distinct galaxies. Together, they form the first identified example of what's known as a compact galaxy group. It was originally called Stephan's Quintet, but, as NASA explains, one of the members had to drop out:

About 300 million light-years away, only four of these five galaxies are actually locked in a cosmic dance of repeated close encounters. The odd man out is easy to spot, though. The interacting galaxies, NGC 7319, 7318A, 7318B, and 7317 have an overall yellowish cast. They also tend to have distorted loops and tails, grown under the influence of disruptive gravitational tides. But the predominantly bluish galaxy, NGC 7320, is closer, just 40 million light-years distant, and isn't part of the interacting group.

While the image up top is pretty damn breathtaking - particularly if you click to expand it to its full resolution, which I'd recommend - it might not be the most helpful in keeping all the different galaxies of Stephan's Quintet/Quartet straight. To that end, here's a useful diagram of all the galaxies from the Hubble Site.


more

http://io9.com/5888354/a-stunning-image-of-four-galaxies-smashed-together-in-one-tiny-corner-of-the-universe?tag=space-porn

[pkdu]

1. Space Porn ! love it!! n/t

[orwell]

2. Stellar sluts...n/t

[Beartracks]

3. I'd let my tax money go to space porn any time!

They can even put their videos on the intertubes!

=============================

[dem644555il]

14. +1

[tridim]

4. I imagine the night sky is extra spectacular for the inhabitants of those galaxies.

Lucky bastards.

[FailureToCommunicate]

5. They lost me at "...one TINY CORNER of the universe"

(but thanks, n2doc, as always)

[bvar22]

6. Anybody else see the Smiley Face Galaxy?

Thats the one I'm moving to when the InterGalactic Drive
I'm building in the garage is finished.

[FogerRox]

7. Dont want to crush Ur dreams

but that one has a big huge black hole.....

Living there may suck....

[bvar22]

8. What do you have against Black Holes?

They are every bit as good as White Holes,
and are entitled to equal rights and equal protections.

[byronius]

9. I'm officially mind-blown.

I took your advice and looked at the high-res, and then set my browser to 400%.

Holy &*%$.

[AlbertCat]

10. Isn't that "Stephen's Quintet"...

.... so it's FIVE galaxies smashing together

[Angleae]

12. One of the five is much closer than the other four (300m LY vs 40m LY).

[AlbertCat]

13. One of the five is much closer than the other four

Indeed. as Wikipedia says:


Also of interest, NGC 7320 (to the lower left in both photos) indicates a small redshift (790 km/s) while the other four exhibit large redshifts (near 6600 km/s). Since galactic redshift is proportional to distance, NGC 7320 is only a foreground projection[2] and is ~39 million ly[2] from Earth versus the 210-340 million ly of the other five.

So we're seeing the collision as it appeared 210-340 million years ago.

I wonder how they're doing now.....

[madrchsod]

11. cool..another screen saver

[damyank913]

15. I wonder if we were close enough and we could look up and see this without a telescope...

...would we see the movement (rotation) with the naked eye.