Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Dalcanton, Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA
Doha, Qatar: The Hubble Space Telescope, a collaboration between European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA, has captured a dramatic cosmic encounter in which two spiral galaxies, comprised of stars and their solar systems, dust and gas, are in the midst of a collision.
The ESA shared the picture of 'Arp 122' on its official handle on X, showing the two galaxies - the titled warped spiral galaxy NGC 6040 and the round, face-on spiral LEDA 59642, are in the midst of collision.
Describing the picture ESA wrote, "two spiral galaxies that are merging together at the right side of the image. One is seen face-on and is circular in shape. The other seems to lie in front of the first one. This galaxy is seen as a disc tilted away from the viewer and it is partially warped. In the lower-left corner, cut off by the frame, a large elliptical galaxy appears as light radiating from a point. Various small galaxies cover the background."
Explaining the science behind galactic collisions, ESA stated that such mergers are monumentally energetic and dramatic events, but they take place on a very slow timescale.
"For example, the Milky Way is on track to collide with its nearest galactic neighbour, the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), but these two galaxies have a good four billion years to go before they actually meet," it added.
???? This NASA/ESA @HUBBLE_space Telescope image features Arp 122, a peculiar galaxy that in fact comprises two galaxies — NGC 6040, the tilted, warped spiral galaxy and LEDA 59642, the round, face-on spiral — that are in the midst of a collision.
— ESA (@esa) January 8, 2024
Galactic collisions and mergers… pic.twitter.com/riQOmPKb4r
The process of colliding and merging will not be a quick one and might take hundreds of millions of years to unfold. The collisions take so long because of the truly massive distances involved.
The collision could change the structure of the colliding galaxies and might result in a single merged galaxy. It would be fascinating to know what Arp 122 will look like once this collision is complete . . . but that will not happen for a long, long time, added ESA.
