A beautiful new image of two colliding spiral galaxies, known as NGC 3921, has been released by NASA.
This Hubble image shows NGC 3921, an interacting pair of galaxies in the late stages of its merger. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Judy Schmidt, geckzilla.com.
It is known today that merging galaxies play a significant role in the evolution of galaxies and the formation of elliptical galaxies in particular.
However there are only a few merging systems close enough to be observed in depth.
NGC 3921, also known as Markarian 430, LEDA 37063 or IRAS 11484+5521, is one of these systems.
It lies in the constellation Ursa Major, approximately 278 million light-years from here.
Observations show that both of the galaxies involved were about the same mass and collided 700 million years ago.
You can see clearly in this image the disturbed morphology, tails and loops characteristic of a post-merger.
The clash of galaxies caused a rush of star formation and Hubble observations in 1997 showed over 100 young star clusters bursting to life at the heart of the galaxy pair.
The image was taken by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
A version of this image was entered into the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition by amateur astronomer Judy Schmidt.
