Hubble Witnesses Dance of Galaxies: Arp 293 | Astronomy – Sci-News.com
NASA has released a beautiful photo taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the peculiar pair of interacting galaxies called Arp 293.
This Hubble image shows the pair of interacting galaxies Arp 293. The image includes infrared observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Three filters were used to sample various wavelengths. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / K. Larson et al.
Arp 293 is located approximately 248 million light-years from Earth in the constellation of Draco.
The galaxy pair is composed of two spiral galaxies, NGC 6285 (left) and NGC 6286 (right), with similar luminosities and velocities.
Both galaxies were discovered by the American astronomer Lewis A. Swift in the 1880s.
NGC 6285 is designated as S0 in the galaxy morphological classification scheme.
NGC 6286 is a Sb-type galaxy seen almost edge-on with a thick dust lane that runs inclined to the galaxy’s stellar disk.
“Hubble has viewed a number of interacting pairs,” the Hubble astronomers said.
“These can have distinctive, beautiful, and downright odd shapes, ranging from sheet music to a spaceship entering a sci-fi-esque wormhole, a bouquet of celestial blooms, and a penguin fiercely guarding its precious egg.”
“NGC 6286 and NGC 6285 are interacting, their mutual gravitational attraction pulling wisps of gas and streams of dust from them, distorting their shapes, and gently smudging and blurring their appearances on the sky — to Earth-based observers, at least,” they said.
The distance between NGC 6285 and NGC 6286 is approximately 130,500 light-years.
A faint ‘bridge’ can be seen between the galaxies in deep images.
“Some galaxies are closer friends than others,” the researchers noted.
“While many live their own separate, solitary lives, others stray a little too close to a near neighbor and take their relationship to the next level.”
