Interacting Galaxies
RA 18 33 37.38 Dec +59 53 21.2
Pavo
400 million light-years (100 million parsecs)
ACS/WFC
October 30, 2001
38 minutes
F435W (B) and F814W (I)
NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage-ESA/Hubble Collaboration, and A. Evans (U of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook Univ.)
April 24, 2008
ABOUT THIS IMAGE:
NGC
6670 is a gorgeous pair of overlapping edge-on galaxies resembling a leaping
dolphin. Scientists believe that NGC 6670 has already experienced at least
one close encounter and is now in the early stages of a second. The nuclei
of the two galaxies are approximately 50,000 light-years apart. NGC 6670
glows in the infrared with more than a hundred billion times the luminosity
of our Sun and is thought to be entering a starburst phase. The pair is
located some 400 million light-years away from Earth.
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.