This image has been also published on
Notable submissions to the Astronomy Picture of the DayNGC1614 is one of the most luminous galaxies in the nearby Universe with quasar-like nucleus, located about 200 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Eridanus, the River.
The galaxy is bright at the center, with two nearly symmetrical inner spiral arms. This galaxy is undergoing a minor merger event with a gas-rich, low-mass companion galaxy, located in a tidal tail to the southwest of the nucleus (in this image - towards upper right). The main galaxy is estimated to be around 3−5 times as massive as the merging object. The interaction between the two galaxies is triggering a burst of star formation in NGC 1614, although not apparently showing an active galactic nucleus, which is described as "one of the most extreme nearby starbursts".
Image Credits: NASA/ESA, Hubble
Processing and copyright: Leo Shatz
Imaged by HST with wfc3 camera
Filters: uvis F665n, F555W, F336W, F814W, IR F110W
Description sources:
[1]
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015toru.conf..A20P/abstract[2]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_1614[3]
https://spacetelescope.org/images/heic0810ax/
Comments