"Not even light can escape such hollowing, this huge mass in a small space. Even the Milky Way with its open arms is said to have a black hole at its heart." -Susan B.A. Somers-Willett
Our Milky Way is home to us all. With its hundreds of billions of stars, massive spiral arms, dust lanes, and orbiting globular clusters, it's no wonder that nearly everything we see in the night sky is contained within it.
"Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly because I have to - I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language! But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws! And feel the wind of a supernova flowing over me!" -Ronald Moore
Well, you probably don't actually want to feel the wind of a supernova flowing over you; trust me on this.
Stars form in clusters from large clouds of gas and dust. The Milky Way forms star clusters with masses 10,000 times that of our Sun. A new study shows that other galaxies can easily form much bigger clusters, which can be millions of times the mass of our Sun. There’s a catch though: These galaxies must be merging.
As reported in a paper in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, observations of six merging pairs of galaxies suggest that star clusters up to 1 million solar masses can form in these collisions. An increase in star formation for colliding galaxies was well established, but the estimate of how it is concentrated in large clusters is an important insight into galaxy evolution.
To mark a new year in space for the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA and the European Space Agency have released a montage of six galaxy mergers studied as part of a survey to investigate post-merger star formation rates. Image: ESA/Hubble, NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University), A. Adamo et al.
To celebrate a new year, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has published a montage of six beautiful galaxy mergers. Each of these merging systems was studied as part of the recent HiPEEC survey to investigate the rate of new star formation within such systems. These interactions are a key aspect of galaxy evolution and are among the most spectacular events in the lifetime of a galaxy.
To celebrate a new year, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has published a montage of six beautiful galaxy mergers. Each of these merging systems was studied as part of the recent HiPEEC survey to investigate the rate of new star formation within such systems. These interactions are a key aspect of galaxy evolution and are among the most spectacular events in the lifetime of a galaxy.
heic2101a Hubble Showcases 6 Galaxy Mergers
Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University), A. Adamo et al.