Galaxy Beauty
What if you could move anywhere in the cosmos just to get a good view? Where would you go? The view from our own planet takes in the interior of our own galaxy, plus a healthy look out to intergalactic space. We can see, literally, for billions of light-years, provided we use the right instruments. But, what if you could live on a world at the rim of a distant galaxy that was overlooking a pair of interacting galaxies? What you like this to be your view?
This is a pair of galaxies called NGC 1531/2 and they lie about 70 million light-years away from Earth. From this point of view, we can tell they are interacting in a sort of spirited galactic waltz. The spiral galaxy in the foreground is being warped by its dance with the smaller galaxy just above it. The cosmic dance leads to another dramatic effect: a whole new generation of massive stars that were created in the chaos of collision during the dance. They are visible as the purple objects in the spiral arms.
This view from your living room window on that distant planet I mentioned above is really an exquisite image from the European Southern Observatory. It was made by R. Gendler and J.-E. Ovaldsen who used the 1.5-meter Danish telescope to capture the image.
I often wish we had dramatic views like this from our own back yards here on Earth rather than the skies we do have. On the other hand, using telescopes like the ones at ESO, we really kinda do. So, enjoy!!
