Hubble image archive
Supersonic Comet-Like Objects (right) in Heart of the Cartwheel Galaxy (left)
Researchers analyzing the Hubble Space Telescope's dramatic pictures of the Cartwheel galaxy have discovered immense comet-like clouds of gas speeding through the heart of the galaxy at nearly 700,000 mph.Located 500 million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor, the gal...
- Date
- Jan 1, 1996
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-1996-36-457-image
Researchers analyzing the Hubble Space Telescope's dramatic pictures of the Cartwheel galaxy have discovered immense comet-like clouds of gas speeding through the heart of the galaxy at nearly 700,000 mph.
Located 500 million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor, the galaxy looks like a wagon wheel. The galaxy's nucleus is the bright object in the center of the image; the spoke-like structures are wisps of material connecting the nucleus to the outer ring of young stars. The galaxy's unusual configuration was created by a nearly head-on collision with a smaller galaxy about 200 million years ago.
This close-up image of the galaxy's nucleus reveals the comet-like knots of gas. These knots are mostly confined to the core's left side and appear as white streaks inside the blue ring. The "heads" are a few hundred light-years across; the tails are more than 1,000 light-years long, the longest of which is nearly 5,000 light-years. The structures look like comets because they probably were spawned by a collision between high-speed and slower-moving material. This collision created an arrowhead-shaped pattern called a bow shock, which is similar to the wake of a boat speeding across a lake.
Credits
Curt Struck and Philip Appleton (Iowa State University), Kirk Borne (Hughes STX Corporation), and Ray Lucas (Space Telescope Science Institute), and NASAImage Details
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Cartwheel Galaxy |
| R.A. Position | 00h 37m 41.09s |
| Dec. Position | -33° 42' 59.0" |
Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
View on NASA.gov