Above and Beyond: Interacting Galaxies Arp 273

 

 

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)

[ATONAL MUSIC]

 

(DESCRIPTION)

A spiral galaxy's arms have wide spaces between them. Another spiral galaxy has flattened and elongated.

 

Text, A recent encounter has warped these two galaxies into beautiful but peculiar states.

 

In the larger galaxy, the outermost spiral arm has been yanked askew.

 

Clusters of young, blue stars spread like a rash around the galaxy.

 

In the smaller galaxy, tails of stars and gas stretch out from either end.

 

Fits of new star formation illuminate parts of the galaxy.

 

All this visual evidence adds up to one conclusion.

 

This galactic pandemonium was instigated by the small galaxy as it swung past the larger one in the not-too-distant past. HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE. A.R.P. 273.