Hubble views a merging galactic trio

A spectacular trio of merging galaxies within the constellation Boötes takes heart stage on this picture from the NASA/ESA Hubble House Telescope. These three galaxies are set on a collision course and can finally merge right into a single bigger galaxy, distorting each other’s spiral construction by way of mutual gravitational interplay within the course of. An unrelated foreground galaxy seems to drift serenely close to this scene, and the smudged shapes of rather more distant galaxies are seen within the background.

This colliding trio—recognized to astronomers as SDSSCGB 10189—is a comparatively uncommon mixture of three giant star-forming galaxies mendacity inside solely 50,000 light-years of each other. Whereas that may sound like a protected distance, for galaxies this makes them extraordinarily shut neighbors. Our personal galactic neighbors are a lot additional away; Andromeda, the closest giant galaxy to the Milky Way, is greater than 2.5 million light-years away from Earth.

This picture comes from an statement designed to assist astronomers perceive the origin of the biggest, most large galaxies within the universe. These galactic behemoths are known as Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) and—because the identify suggests—are outlined because the brightest galaxies in any given galaxy cluster. Astronomers suspect that BCGs kind by way of the merger of enormous, gas-rich galaxies like those seen right here. They turned to Hubble’s Large Area Digital camera 3 and Superior Digital camera for Surveys to research this galactic trio in painstaking element, hoping to make clear the formation of the universe’s most large galaxies.