Rodents of Unusual Size 🐭
These twin galaxies are nicknamed “The Mice” due to their long tails of stars and gas stretching hundreds of thousands of light-years, due to gravitational forces likely from their last encounter approximately 160 million years ago. The galaxies will eventually merge, in about a billion years, into a single massive elliptical galaxy after colliding several times. The collision of The Mice may presage the eventual collision between Andromeda and our own galaxy, the Milky Way.
NASAHubble captured this view of the pair, located 300 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices, with its Advanced Camera for Surveys in blue, orange, and near-infrared filters. This image shows the most detail and the most stars ever seen in these galaxies; above the left galaxy, a bright blue patch contains a cascade of clusters of young, hot, blue stars.
Image description: Surrounded by black space dotted by small stars and galaxies, The Mice appear in blue...
Tags, Events, and Projects