#galaxy interaction

The Polar Ring Galaxy NGC660

Not all Spiral Galaxies are the same, and while many follow a particular morphology, NGC 660 has a ring that goes over and under the spiral plane.

So how did this galaxy get a ring in such a strange place ? While nobody can say for sure, there is one obvious way, and it's the usual suspect when a galaxy strays from it's more predictable morphology, that of a galaxy interaction.

Most likely, at some point in the last billion years or so, either a larger galaxy pulled it's ring away but moved off too fast to obtain it, or another spiral galaxy came in at the particular angle and this galaxy tore an arm off, making it a new appendage.

This is the Antennae Galaxies! 🐛🐜🐛🐜🐛🐜

The galaxy shown here is actually in the process of merging! A few million years ago, these galaxies began interacting and formed young clusters each with thousands of new stars. Its name comes from the formation of “tidal tails” that resemble antennae during the collision! 🌌🌌🌌

This made me think of this picture

NGC 247

The spiral galaxy NGC 247 may not look particularly spiral, but it's a 75,000 light year across galaxy not too dissimilar to our Milky Way, the difference being from Earth, it appears near side-on, hiding the arms and features we associate with a spiral.

One interesting aside is the Burbidge's Chain, 4 galaxies lined up, and with the left two appearing to show some kind of star connection between them.

LEDA 857074

When it comes to galaxies, I'll hazard a guess LEDA 857074 wasn't one of them, and that's not too unsurprising, the universe is full of countless galaxies, we simply can't know them all, however this odd fellow has fewer than 5 academic papers written referencing it (one of which is just a catalogue referencing it's location), and until Hubble took this image, little or nothing much was known about it at all.

That was until a chance supernova explosion in 2022 captured by automated monitoring, drew some interest and Hubble time.

M96 is the primary member of the M96 group, and similar in many ways to M95, although sporting a double bulge, a central one (the bright central region) and an outer one, the area to the first almost ring like arm. It has the appearance as having had it's arms pulled away and now snapped back, particularly as the core is now off centre, it would suggest a near miss at some point recent in its history.

As featured yesterday, M95 may be the culprit as both galaxies have similar disruption patterns.

NGC 2442 - The Cobra Galaxy

This interesting galaxy is actually categorized as two, NGC 2442 and 3, although it's actually one galaxy. The confusion came from it being assumed the top and bottom were somehow separated, but closer observation changed that, but the catalogue references remained.

The galaxy is around 50 Million light years from Earth in the constellation of Volans, making this image about 75,000 light years across, a little smaller than our galaxy, but it's S type shape betrays some recently interactions with other galaxies.

NGC 1398

Some galaxies create amazing ring like structures, usually caused by resonance or gravitational shock after past interactions.