Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have produced a spectacular image of two members galaxies of the galactic triplet Arp 248.
This image shows two member galaxies, PGC 36733 (left) and PGC 36723 (right), in the Wild’s Triplet. The galaxies are a mix of pale blue and yellow in color, crossed by strands of dark red dust. A long, faint streak of pale blue joins them, extending from an arm of one galaxy and crossing the field diagonally. A small spiral galaxy, orange in color, is visible edge-on, left of PGC 36723. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Dark Energy Survey / DOE / FNAL / DECam / CTIO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. Dalcanton.
Arp 248 is located approximately 200 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Virgo.
Otherwise known as the Wild’s Triplet, it consists of three spiral galaxies: PGC 36733 (left), PGC 36723 (right) and PGC 36742 (out of the frame).
“The two large spiral galaxies visible in this image — which flank a smaller, unrelated background spiral galaxy — seem to be connected by a luminous bridge,” Hubble astronomers said.
“This elongated stream of stars and interstellar dust is known as a tidal tail, and it was formed by the mutual gravitational attraction of the two foreground galaxies.”
“This observation comes from a project which delves into two rogues’ galleries of weird and wonderful galaxies: A Catalogue of Southern Peculiar Galaxies and Associations, compiled by astronomers Halton Arp and Barry Madore, and the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, compiled by astronomer Halton Arp,” they said.
“Each collection contains a menagerie of spectacularly peculiar galaxies, including interacting galaxies such as Arp 248, as well as one- or three-armed spiral galaxies, galaxies with shell-like structures, and a variety of other space oddities.”
This color image of Arp 248 was made from separate exposures taken in the visible region of the spectrum with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).
“With such a wealth of astronomical objects to study in the night sky, projects such as this, which guide future observations, are a valuable investment of observing time,” the astronomers said.
“As well as the scientific merits of observing these weird and wonderful galaxies, they were also — very unusually — selected as Hubble targets because of their visual appeal to the general public!”
The image also includes optical and infrared data from the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) instrument on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-m telescope.
