File:Cartwheel-galaxy.jpg

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Cartwheel-galaxy.jpg (641 × 523 pixels, file size: 498 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

Captions

Captions

Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents
This file has been superseded by Cartwheel Galaxy.jpg. It is recommended to use the other file. Please note that deleting superseded images requires consent.
 new file
Description

A rare and spectacular head-on collision between two galaxies appears in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope true-color image of the Cartwheel Galaxy, located 500 million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor. The new details of star birth resolved by Hubble provide an opportunity to study how extremely massive stars are born in large fragmented gas clouds.

The striking ring-like feature is a direct result of a smaller intruder galaxy — possibly one of two objects to the right of the ring — that careened through the core of the host galaxy. Like a rock tossed into a lake, the collision sent a ripple of energy into space, plowing gas and dust in front of it. Expanding at 200,000 miles per hour, this cosmic tsunami leaves in its wake a firestorm of new star creation. Hubble resolves bright blue knots that are gigantic clusters of newborn stars and immense loops and bubbles blown into space by exploding stars (supernovae) going off like a string of firecrackers.

The Cartwheel Galaxy presumably was a normal spiral galaxy like our Milky Way before the collision. This spiral structure is beginning to re-emerge, as seen in the faint arms or spokes between the outer ring and bulls-eye shaped nucleus. The ring contains at least several billion new stars that would not normally have been created in such a short time span and is so large (150,000 light-years across) our entire Milky Way Galaxy would fit inside.
Date
Source http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2007/17/image/d/ (direct link)
Author NASA, ESA, and K. Borne (STScI)
Permission
(Reusing this file)
Public domain
This file is in the public domain because it was created by NASA and ESA. NASA Hubble material (and ESA Hubble material prior to 2009) is copyright-free and may be freely used as in the public domain without fee, on the condition that only NASA, STScI, and/or ESA is credited as the source of the material. This license does not apply if ESA material created after 2008 or source material from other organizations is in use.

The material was created for NASA by Space Telescope Science Institute under Contract NAS5-26555, or for ESA by the Hubble European Space Agency Information Centre. Copyright statement at hubblesite.org or 2008 copyright statement at spacetelescope.org.

For material created by the European Space Agency on the spacetelescope.org site since 2009, use the {{ESA-Hubble}} tag.

File history

Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.

Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current01:27, 10 March 2010Thumbnail for version as of 01:27, 10 March 2010641 × 523 (498 KB)Tryphon (talk | contribs)Original size, from http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2007/17/image/d/ (http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/images/hs-2007-17-d-full_jpg.jpg).
09:10, 1 March 2006Thumbnail for version as of 09:10, 1 March 2006497 × 381 (28 KB)Centaurus~commonswiki (talk | contribs)

You cannot overwrite this file.

There are no pages that use this file.

File usage on other wikis

The following other wikis use this file:

Metadata

This file contains additional information such as Exif metadata which may have been added by the digital camera, scanner, or software program used to create or digitize it. If the file has been modified from its original state, some details such as the timestamp may not fully reflect those of the original file. The timestamp is only as accurate as the clock in the camera, and it may be completely wrong.

Retrieved from "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Cartwheel-galaxy.jpg&oldid=957105822"