Astronomers have taken a snapshot of a cosmic rarity, the merging of three galaxies. And oh what a picture! By combining a 30 minute infrared exposure from the ESO’s Very Large Telescope with data from the Hubble Space Telescope, the stargazers managed to produce this pretty three-color portrait of a galactic hybrid, known as either ESO 593-IG 008 or IRAS 19115-2124, 650 million light years away.
The researchers already knew that the stellar smash-up involved two galaxies, but three? (See next page for an image where you can clearly count all three galactic nuclei.)
The span of this beast is about 100,000 light years.
To add surprises to surprises, they also found that
The 'head' and major parts of the 'Bird' are moving apart at more than 400 km/s (1.4 million km/h!).
The researchers dubbed it “The Cosmic Bird,” as you can see in the caption, but that name falls a little flat for me. The “cosmic bird” sounds like something you would show to George Jetson when he cuts you off on the interstellar highway. They also suggested “Tinker Bell,” but “Tinker Bell” hardly conjures up a deep space, star-making, beast with three backs.
What would you call it?
Related:
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