Antennae Galaxies - NGC 4038 & 4039 (Miles Zhou)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Corvus (Crv) · Contains: Antennae · Antennae Galaxies · NGC 4038 · NGC 4039

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Antennae Galaxies - NGC 4038 & 4039

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Antennae Galaxies - NGC 4038 & 4039

NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 are known as the Antennae galaxies. They are located near western edge of Corvus.

This pair of interacting galaxies was discovered by William Herschel on February 7, 1785,

NGC 4038 and 4039 have a visual magnitude of 10.5 and 10.3, respectively, and their cores appear both 5.4 arc minutes across. The nuclei of the two galaxies are joining to become one giant galaxy; two long streamers of ejected stars, gas and dust extend outward from their centers, making two long tails (shown) which resemble the antennae of an insect.

The Antennae lie about 63 million light-years away, in the NGC 4038 Group of galaxies in the constellations Corvus and Crater. The group's best known galaxies are NGC 4038 and 4039; but NGC 3956, 3957, 3981, 4024, 4027, 4033, and 4050 (not shown) have also been consistently identified as group members.

In any case, the Antennae are the nearest and youngest example of a pair of colliding galaxies. About 1.2 billion years ago, the Antennae were two separate galaxies; NGC 4038 was a spiral, and NGC 4039 was a barred spiral. Before the galaxies collided, NGC 4039 was probably larger than NGC 4038. 900 million years ago, the Antennae began to approach one another, appearing similar to NGC 2207 and IC 2163. 600 million years ago, the Antennae passed through each other, like the Mice Galaxies (NGC 4676 in Coma Berenices). 300 million years ago, the collision began to release the Antennae's stars, as each galaxy's gravitation has drawn out a curved tail of stars from the other. Today the two streamers of ejected stars extend far beyond the original galaxies, spanning a total of some 360,000 light-years.

This is a simple LRGB composition.

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4203125
PixInsight job	0OKUH1ZO3T0W1J1CD3QXAUNV6RCPBN0Y
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	12h01m47s.549
RA (top/left)	12h02m40s.230
RA (top/right)	12h00m55s.121
RA (bottom/right)	12h00m54s.775
RA (bottom/left)	12h02m40s.610

Dec (center)	-18°53′50″.46
Dec (top/left)	-18°40′38″.81
Dec (top/right)	-18°40′36″.47
Dec (bottom/right)	-19°07′01″.61
Dec (bottom/left)	-19°07′03″.26

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Antennae Galaxies - NGC 4038 & 4039

Antennae Galaxies - NGC 4038 & 4039

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Antennae Galaxies - NGC 4038 & 4039

Antennae Galaxies - NGC 4038 & 4039

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