Interacting Galaxies
RA 23hr 15m 46.85s Dec -59° 03' 13.0"
Tucana
550 million light-years (200 million parsecs)
ACS/WFC
March 21, 2002
38 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:
ESO 148-2 is a beautiful object that resembles an owl in flight. It consists of a pair of former disk galaxies undergoing a collision. The cores of the two individual galaxies - seen at the center of the image - are embedded in hot dust and contain a large number of stars. Two huge wings sweep out from the center and curve in opposite directions. These are tidal tails of stars and gas that have been pulled from the easily distorted disks of the galaxies. This cosmic owl is one of the most luminous infrared galaxies known and is located some 600 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