Hubble Interacting Galaxy UGC 9618
Interacting Galaxies
RA 14h 57m 00.90s Dec +24° 37' 01.7"
Boötes
450 million light-years (150 million parsecs)
11.3
1.6 arcmin
January 6, 2002
33 minutes
F435W (B) and F814W (I)
NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration & A. Evans (U of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University)
April 24, 2008
ABOUT THIS IMAGE:
UGC 9618, also known as VV 340 or Arp 302 consists of a pair of very gas-rich spiral galaxies in their early stages of interaction: VV 340A is seen edge-on to the left, and VV 340B face-on to the right. An enormous amount of infrared light is radiated by the gas from massive stars that are forming at a rate similar to the most vigorous giant star-forming regions in our own Milky Way. UGC 9618 is 450 million light-years away from Earth, and is the 302nd galaxy in Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies.
This
image is part of a large collection of 59 images of merging galaxies taken
by the Hubble Space Telescope and released on the occasion of its 18th
anniversary on 24th April 2008