Astronomy Picture of the Day
    


Bright Star Knots in NGC 4038
<< Yesterday 2.06.1997 Tomorrow >>
Bright Star Knots in NGC 4038
Credit & Copyright: B. C. Whitmore (STScI) & F. Schweizer (DTM, CIW), HST, NASA
Copyright: AURA
Explanation: This galaxy is having a bad millennium. In fact, the past 100 million years haven't been so good, and probably the next billion or so should be quite tumultuous. NGC 4039 was a normal spiral galaxy, minding its own business, when NGC 4038 crashed into it. The evolving wreckage, known as the "Antennae", is pictured above. As gravity pulls each galaxy apart, clouds of gas slam into each other and bright blue knots are formed. These knots are large clusters of stars imbedded in vast regions of ionized hydrogen gas. The high abundance of relatively dim star clusters is quite unlike our Milky Way's globular cluster system, though. Perhaps some of these young star clusters will go on to form globular clusters, while others will disperse through close gravitational encounters. The above picture is centered around the larger of the two interacting galaxies: NGC 4038. The diagonal streak across the upper left is unrelated to the colliding galaxies. The color contrast in the above three-color mosaic was chosen to highlight extended features.

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
 < June 1997  >
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su






1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30





Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.

Based on Astronomy Picture Of the Day

Publications with keywords: NGC 4038
Publications with words: NGC 4038
See also:
All publications on this topic >>