Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Corvus (Crv)  ·  Contains:  Antennae  ·  Antennae Galaxies  ·  NGC 4038  ·  NGC 4039
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The Antennae Galaxies, Mark L Mitchell
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The Antennae Galaxies

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The Antennae Galaxies, Mark L Mitchell
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The Antennae Galaxies

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Description

3.5 h of LRGB taken over five days through the trees. Galaxies are close to each other relative to their size. So if the Sun were the size of a pea, the nearest star would be miles away, but if the Milky Way were the size of a dinner plate, the Andromeda galaxy would be just down a long dinner table. Consequently, we see galaxies in collision fairly frequently, but not usually in flagrante delicto like NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 in Corvus. Tidal forces from a previous collision expelled the stars that make up the antennae, and the current collision has caused massive star production with many unusually large masses of young blue stars. These foci of emission are called Rubin knots after Vera Rubin who studied them in the 1960s with Sandro D'Odorico.

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The Antennae Galaxies, Mark L Mitchell