Image: The Hubble Telescope captures a catastrophic collision of a pair of galaxies about to merge

Posted:

June 22, 2021, 08:55 GMT

Astronomers hope the powerful influx of gas will ignite a star-forming explosion in the resulting compact galaxy.

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured an image of a catastrophic collision in interacting galaxies IC 1623, which is in its final stages of merging. Astronomers hope the powerful influx of gas will ignite a star-forming explosion in the resulting compact galaxy.

through a Release The Hubble team, published on Monday, categorized the galaxy pair collision as “Picture of the Week,” under the heading “Clash of the Titans.”

According to the specialists, “This new image includes new data from the Wide Angle Camera 3 (WFC3) and combines observations taken in eight filters that span wavelengths from infrared to ultraviolet to reveal the finest details of IC 1623.”

The galaxies captured are located very far from the Milky Way, about 275 million light-years away, in the constellation Cetus.

In addition, the image of IC 1623 documents how the two galaxies are in their final stage of merging, but this process takes hundreds of millions of years to complete.

Astronomers will continue to observe galaxies to understand more about star formation processes in other similar environments.

The spiral galaxy system IC 1623 was discovered by American astronomer Louis Swift in 1897 and is only partially visible at certain times of the year.