Above and Beyond: The Mice Galaxies

 

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach.

 

All images, illustrations, and videos courtesy of NASA, ESA, and STScI except:

 

·       Taurus constellation drawing from Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia by Johannes Hevelius, courtesy of the United States Naval Observatory

·       Large galaxy collision animation courtesy of NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center and the Advanced Visualization Laboratory at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, B. Robertson, L. Hernquist

·       Expanding universe animation courtesy of NASA

·       Andromeda Galaxy image courtesy of Digitized Sky Survey 2, acknowledgment: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble)

·       Animated pan through Milky Way courtesy of ESO/M. Kornmesser

·       Animation of stars moving courtesy of Frank Summers (STScI)

·       Animation of random stellar orbits courtesy of NCSA, UCLA/Keck

·       Milky Way formation animation ©Prof. Romain Teyssier (University of Zurich)

·       Major and minor galaxy merger animations ©Dr. Benjamin Moster (Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics)

·       Fly-around animation of Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy courtesy of David Law (Dunlap Institute, University of Toronto)

·       Animation of two colliding spiral galaxies courtesy of Volker Springel, Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics

 

 

Written by Vanessa Thomas and John Stoke

Designed by John Godfrey and Marc Lussier

Music courtesy of Association Production Music

(SPEECH)

[SLOW ELECTRONIC MUSIC]

 

(DESCRIPTION)

White and yellow stars and dust clouds trail from two galaxies.

 

Text, HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE. THE MICE (N.G.C. 4 6 7 6). Stars and gas stream like tails away from a pair of galaxies nicknamed The Mice. Such starry streamers are a tell-tale sign that a galaxy collision is in full swing.

 

As two galaxies sweep around each other, their gravitational attraction pulls strongest at the nearest stars and gas.

 

The gas and stars farthest from the heart of the action trail behind as the galaxies perform their gravitational dance.