{"id":71032,"date":"2025-02-06T07:21:22","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T07:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/aerospace\/check-out-nasas-new-image-of-the-brilliant-bullseye-galaxy-the-aftermath-of-a-rare-cosmic-collision\/"},"modified":"2025-02-06T07:21:22","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T07:21:22","slug":"check-out-nasas-new-image-of-the-brilliant-bullseye-galaxy-the-aftermath-of-a-rare-cosmic-collision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=71032","title":{"rendered":"Check Out NASA’s New Image of the Brilliant Bullseye Galaxy, the Aftermath of a Rare Cosmic Collision"},"content":{"rendered":"


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LEDA 1313424, nicknamed the Bullseye, appears next to the small blue dwarf galaxy on its immediate left.
\n NASA, ESA, Imad Pasha (Yale), Pieter van Dokkum (Yale)<\/span>
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Around 50 million years ago, a blue dwarf galaxy shot through the center of an enormous galaxy more than twice the size of the Milky Way, called LEDA 1313424. Now, astronomers have revealed<\/a> the spectacular result of this record-breaking collision: nine starry rings, which is six more than any other galaxy known to scientists.<\/p>\n

LEDA 1313424 was appropriately dubbed the \u201cBullseye,\u201d as detailed in a study published Tuesday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters<\/em><\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Hubble Space Telescope detected eight of those rings, and data from the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii confirmed a ninth. The team also suspects the collision might have formed a bygone tenth ring<\/a>. In the words of Forbes<\/em><\/a>\u2019 Amanda Kooser, \u201cthe smaller galaxy not only put a ring on it, it put at least nine rings on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The blue dwarf galaxy (seen on LEDA 1313424\u2019s left in the image) shot through the Bullseye like an arrow. The impact moved material both inward and outward and triggered new regions of stellar formation, creating ripples akin to when you drop a pebble in water. Over time, the galaxy\u2019s stars \u201cpiled up\u201d into rings. Now, the blue dwarf galaxy has fled 130,000 light-years away from its victim.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re catching the Bullseye at a very special moment in time,\u201d Pieter G. van Dokkum<\/a>, an astronomer at Yale University and a co-author of the new study, says in a statement<\/a> from NASA. \u201cThere\u2019s a very narrow window after the impact when a galaxy like this would have so many rings.\u201d<\/p>\n

In approximately four billion years, scientists predict that our Milky Way will crash into the Andromeda Galaxy<\/a>\u2014our closest galactic neighbor\u2014but that will be a more complex collision than the one recently highlighted by Hubble, per Universe Today<\/em><\/a>\u2019s\u00a0Alan Boyle. In fact, collisions involving one galaxy diving through the center of another are exceptionally rare.<\/p>\n

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An illustration compares the size of our own Milky Way to LEDA 1313424.<\/p>\n

NASA, ESA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Bullseye had another revelation in store. Imad Pasha<\/a>, the study\u2019s lead author and an astronomer at Yale, discovered the gargantuan galaxy\u2019s rings rippled out almost exactly the way previously developed models would have predicted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is immensely gratifying to confirm this long-standing prediction with the Bullseye galaxy,\u201d van Dokkum says in the statement.<\/p>\n

Hubble allowed scientists to identify the precise positioning of most of the rings, but they aren\u2019t as evenly spaced as the galaxy\u2019s name\u2014or even the magnificent image itself\u2014would suggest. The image was snapped at a slight angle, concealing the fact that numerous rings are bunched together at the center, and the inter-ring spacing grows larger\u00a0on the periphery. Per the researchers, this might be because the first two rings\u2014the ones most influenced by the collision\u2014formed rapidly before widening, whereas the subsequent rings could have formed in a more staggered fashion.<\/p>\n

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An illustration shows the Bullseye face-on, with its rings highlighted. More of the rings are bunched together near the middle.<\/p>\n

NASA, ESA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cHubble can see more rings than previous observations because of its higher spatial resolution: That allows us to see separations between rings that in ground-based observations are blurred together in a single ring,\u201d van Dokkum explains to Gizmodo<\/a><\/em>\u2019s Isaac Schultz.<\/p>\n

Moving forward, NASA\u2019s forthcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope\u2014an\u00a0observatory planned for launch<\/a> no earlier than October 2026\u2014will help astronomers find even more galaxies. With more data, they hope to refine their idea of just how rare this sort of astronomical collision truly is.<\/p>\n

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