Hubble Finds a ‘Thrilling Exchange Between Two Galaxies’

The ongoing interaction between two galaxies 320 million light-years away has been captured in a gorgeous Hubble image.

They're collectively known as Arp 282 in Halton Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, and they consist of a large barred spiral galaxy named NGC 169, about 140,000 light-years across, and a much smaller polar-ring galaxy named IC 1559, which is about 40,000 light-years across.

These two galaxies have drawn close enough together that they're exchanging material. That's not unusual: Although space is vast and mostly empty, galaxies are gravitationally drawn together, perhaps channeled along strands of the invisible cosmic web that stretches across and plays a vital role in shaping the Universe.

Interactions between galaxies significantly contribute to their evolution, whether it's just a flyby that sees an exchange of material, or a full-on merger, as has happened multiple times over the Milky Way's history.

Image credit: Arp 282. (ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Dalcanton, Dark Energy Survey, DOE, FNAL/DECam, CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA, SDSS, J. Schmidt)

[HMehri]

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