Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have obtained a remarkable new view of the galaxy NGC 7714.
This image, taken with the Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys on Hubble, reveals the correlation of the gas clouds and stars in NGC 7714. The picture not only reveals the intricate structure of the galaxy, but also shows many other objects that are much further away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Gal-Yam, Weizmann Institute of Science.
NGC 7714, also catalogued as Markarian 538, is a peculiar galaxy located in the constellation Pisces, approximately 129 million light-years away.
Together with its companion, known as NGC 7715, the galaxy forms the interacting system Arp 284, which is the result of a recent collision (100 – 200 million years ago) between the two disk galaxies.
A ring and two long tails of stars have emerged from NGC 7714, creating a bridge between the two companions.
This bridge acts as a pipeline, funneling material from NGC 7715 towards its larger neighbor and feeding bursts of star formation.
Most of the star-forming activity is concentrated at the bright galactic center, although the whole galaxy is sparking new stars.
Astronomers also characterize NGC 7714 as a typical Wolf-Rayet starburst galaxy.
This is due to the stars within it; a large number of the new stars are of the Wolf-Rayet type – extremely hot and bright stars that begin their lives with dozens of times the mass of the Sun, but lose most of it very quickly via powerful winds.
