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UGC 1810 and UGC 1813 in Arp 273 (captured by the Hubble Space Telescope)
NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
2010-12-17
- Classification
- Photograph
- Museum
- Wikimedia Commons
- Credit line
- http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2011/11/image/a/ (direct link) http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1107a/
- Rights
- Public domain, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Kids profiles and older: it shows nature, places, still life or a children's book. How works are placed
About this work
This Hubble Space Telescope image shows a group of interacting galaxies called Arp 273. The larger of the spiral galaxies, known as UGC 1810, has a disk that is tidally distorted into a rose-like shape by the gravitational tidal pull of the companion galaxy below it, known as UGC 1813. A swath of blue jewels across the top is the combined light from clusters of intensely bright and hot young blue stars. These massive stars glow fiercely in ultraviolet light.
The smaller, nearly edge-on companion shows distinct signs of intense star formation at its nucleus, perhaps triggered by the encounter with the companion galaxy.
A series of uncommon spiral patterns in the large galaxy is a tell-tale sign of interaction. The large, outer arm appears partially as a ring, a feature seen when interacting galaxies actually pass through one another. This suggests that the smaller companion actually dived deep, but off-center, through UGC 1810. The inner set of spiral arms is highly warped out of the plane with one of the arms going behind the bulge and coming back out the other side. How these two spiral patterns connect is still not precisely known.
A possible mini-spiral may be visible in…
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