Written by Muhammad Ayman
Tuesday, February 21, 2023 10:00 PM
A stunning new image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows three galaxies heading towards a collision and merger. While galaxy collisions are fairly common, this is rare because each of the trio of galaxies is currently in the midst of giving birth to new stars.
The three galaxies, seen in the Boötes constellation, will eventually merge to form one large galaxy. In the process, the spiral structure that the galaxies now exhibit will be eliminated as a result of the gravitational interactions between the trio, according to Space.com.
The image shows the three galaxies, collectively known as SDSSCGB 10189, close enough to appear to be merging. The shapes of the galaxies are already distorted and filaments of gas and dust can be seen connecting them. The three galaxies are emitting a great deal of light.
As the collision unfolds, a disjointed spiral galaxy to the left sits quietly, almost like the cosmic equivalent of a “rubber roll” on a highway here on our planet.
Within SDSSCGB 10189, the three large star-forming galaxies are 50,000 light-years apart, and while that may sound like a vast distance that doesn’t carry much risk of collision, it’s actually very close in cosmological terms, for example, Andromeda, The nearest galaxy to our own is the Milky Way, more than 2.5 million light-years away from the Sun.
The new Hubble Space Telescope image is part of an investigation into the origins of the largest and most massive galaxies in the universe, which astronomers call the Most Bright Cluster Galaxies (BCGs).
BCGs form when a large galaxy swallows smaller galaxies or when gas-rich galaxies like this trio collide and merge. These cluster galaxies can be used to track the formation of galaxy clusters, which are massive cosmic structures made up of hundreds or even thousands of galaxies. Scientists also hope that BCGs will provide hints about the evolution of The so-called “cosmic web”, the tangled structure of clumps and filaments of material formed from dark matter that connects individual galaxies within the cluster.
There is still debate about the BCGs and at what time during the 13.8 billion years of the history of the universe they were formed in, and some astronomers believe that these huge bright galaxies formed during an early era in the universe when it was about 19% of its current age, and others believe that the BCGs do not It is still forming and developing today.
The merger of SDSSCGB 10189 may give birth to the BCG and thus could finally shed light on the mystery of how and when these massive, bright galaxies formed.