This is a photo from the space telescope Hubble, as shown on
National
Geographic's site. The conglomeration of the two galaxies is
known as Arp 87.
href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/11/photogalleries/wip-week53/photo3.html">October
30, 2007—A new Hubble image offers the most
detailed view yet of a pair of galaxies entwined in a graceful dance
300 million light-years away. The image reveals fine structures that
couldn't be seen when the pair was first cataloged in the 1960s...
...Interacting galaxies like Arp 87 are known to have some of the
universe's highest rates of star formation.
A nice distraction from the situation here on Earth.
More like this
"For me, the study of these laws is inseparable from a love of Nature in all its manifestations." - Murray Gell-Mann
“The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons.” -Edwin Hubble
more invaluable science nuggets and pretty pictures
There have been several interesting candidates for binary supermassive black holes found recently.
New data suggests one of the recently announced candidates is probably not a binary.
Oh, wow.
I know, it looks like the illustration on an science fiction novel. But they say it is real.
National Geographic: "galaxies entwined in a graceful dance 300 million light-years away".
Vs.
Discovery Channel*: [cue menacing music] "galaxies caught in a cataclysmic, gravitational shredder of cosmic proportions -- a fate the Milky Way will one day face when Andromeda crashes into our home".
* Based on experience; not an actual transcript... but, c'mon, y'know?
I like the galaxies that are entwined in a graceful dance and, at the same time, placed at radically different distances from us; and furthermore sport a quasar sitting smack in front of the "nearest" one. Working astronomers seem oddly -- not to say "curiously" -- reluctant to point a telescope at that darned quasar.
Do a search for "QSO" and "NGC 7319" on arxiv sometime.