The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken an amazing picture of a peculiar galaxy, NGC 1487.
NGC 1487, pictured in this Hubble WFPC2 image, is the result of a merger between two or more smaller galaxies. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.
NGC 1487, also known as ESO 249-31, VV 78 and LEDA 14117, is a 12th magnitude peculiar galaxy.
It is located about 30 million light-years away in the direction of the southern constellation of Eridanus.
According to astronomers, NGC 1487 is the product of a merger process between two or more late-type galaxies.
Two large and faint asymmetric tails — a tracer of earlier interaction — extending in opposite directions can be detected up to about 42,000 light-years.
The merging process could have taken place approximately 500 million years ago.
Although aged yellow and red stars can be seen in the outer regions of NGC 1487, its appearance is dominated by large areas of bright blue stars, illuminating the patches of gas that gave them life.
This burst of star formation may well have been triggered by the merger.
This image of NGC 1487 was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and infrared portions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2).
A version of the image was submitted to NASA by amateur astronomer Judy Schmidt as part of the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures competition.
