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Colliding Galaxy Pair Takes Flight

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June 20, 2013 12:00PM (EDT)Release ID: 2013-23
Two interacting galaxies on the black background of space. The top galaxy is half-curved around the lower galaxy. It shows streaks of bright blue and red strings of dust. The lower galaxy is a bright white orb, about one sixth of the size of the galaxy above it.

Summary

What looks like a celestial hummingbird is really the result of a collision between a spiral and an elliptical galaxy at a whopping 326 million light- years away. The flat disk of the spiral NGC 2936 is warped into the profile of a bird by the gravitational tug of the companion NGC 2937. The object was first cataloged as a "peculiar galaxy" by Halton Arp in the 1960s. This interacting galaxy duo is collectively called Arp 142.

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