Astronomers have shared a new image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. It photographed the galaxy NGC 1511.
NGC 1511 is located 50 million light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Hydrus. Like our Milky Way, it is a spiral galaxy with a bar.
Although NGC 1511 is interesting to observe, it is not the kind of object you would want to have as a neighbor. Like many other galaxies, NGC 1511 does not travel through space alone. It moves together with a pair of small galactic satellites called NGC 1511A and NGC 1511B, which are outside the Hubble image.
NGC 1511B is located closest to NGC 1511, and it appears that these two galaxies collided in the past; they are connected by a narrow thread of hydrogen gas, and NGC 1511B was stretched and deformed as a result of the collision. Researchers have even found evidence that NGC 1511 once had another small companion galaxy, which it completely destroyed.
These dramatic events also affected NGC 1511. The galaxy is undergoing a burst of star formation, and its disk shows strange loops and tails that may indicate past interactions with neighboring galaxies. Hubble’s observations will allow scientists to better study its gas and dust-shrouded star clusters to understand how matter circulates between them.
Earlier, we reported on how distorted galaxies brought astronomers closer to uncovering the mystery of the expansion of the Universe.
According to Esahubble
