A 'Rose' made of galaxies

 A cosmic Rose

-by Anmol Subba (Physics Dept)

In celebration of the twenty-first anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's deployment in April 2011, astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute pointed Hubble's eye to an especially photogenic group of interacting galaxies called Arp 273.


The larger of the spiral galaxies, known as UGC 1810, has a disk that is tidally distorted into a rose-like shape by the gravitational tidal pull of the companion galaxy below it, known as UGC 1813. A swath of blue jewels across the top is the combined light from clusters of intensely bright and hot young blue stars. These massive stars glow fiercely in ultraviolet light.

The smaller, nearly edge-on companion shows distinct signs of intense star formation at its nucleus, perhaps triggered by the encounter with the companion galaxy.

A series of uncommon spiral patterns in the large galaxy is a tell-tale sign of interaction. The large, outer arm appears partially as a ring, a feature seen when interacting galaxies actually pass through one another. This suggests that the smaller companion actually dived deep, but off-center, through UGC 1810. The inner set of spiral arms is highly warped out of the plane with one of the arms going behind the bulge and coming back out the other side. How these two spiral patterns connect is still not precisely known.

The interaction was imaged on Dec. 17, 2010, with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).



This Hubble image is a composite of data taken with three separate filters on WFC3 that allow a broad range of wavelengths covering the ultraviolet, blue and red portions of the spectrum

More on ARP 273

Arp 273 is a pair of interacting galaxies, 300 million light years away in the constellation Andromeda. It was first described in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, compiled by Halton Arp in 1966. The larger of the spiral galaxies, known as UGC 1810, is about five times more massive than the smaller galaxy. It has a disc that is tidally distorted into a rose-like shape by the gravitational pull of the companion galaxy below it, known as UGC 1813. The smaller galaxy shows distinct signs of active star formation at its nucleus, and "it is thought that the smaller galaxy has actually passed through the larger one."



Do let us know in the comment what do u think of this sweet cosmic rose?

Comments

  1. Sai PrasannaAugust 29, 2021 at 12:24 AM

    Cosmic beauty is unparalleled!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownAugust 29, 2021 at 9:11 AM

    And here yet again nature has proved herself to be the most beautiful phenomenon and you by writing this article proved yourself to be the most amazing aspirants of physics.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anmol SubbaAugust 30, 2021 at 6:11 AM

      I am no amazing aspirant of physics but just a random guy who likes to write about things that fascinates him. Thank you for reading

      Delete
  3. UnknownAugust 30, 2021 at 6:18 AM

    👏👏👏👍

    ReplyDelete

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