                  APOD: 2018 June 7 - The Clash of NGC 3256

                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
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                                  2018 June 7
                                      [2]
                            The Clash of NGC 3256
 Image Credit & License [3] : NASA [4] , ESA [5] , Hubble Space Telescope [6]

Explanation: Marked by an unusually bright central region, swirling dust
lanes, and far flung tidal tails, peculiar NGC 3256 is the aftermath of a
truly cosmic collision [7] . The 500 million year old clash of two separate
galaxies spans some 100 thousand light-years in this sharp Hubble view [8] .
Of course when two galaxies collide, individual stars rarely do. Giant
galactic clouds of molecular gas [9] and dust do interact though, and produce
spectacular bursts of star formation [10] . In this galaxy clash [11] , the
two original spiral galaxies had similar masses. Their disks are no longer
distinct and the two galactic nuclei are hidden by obscuring dust. On the
timescale of a few hundred million years the nuclei will likely also merge as
NGC 3256 [12]  becomes a single large elliptical galaxy. NGC 3256 itself is
nearly 100 million light-years distant toward the southern sailing
constellation Vela. The frame includes many even more distant background
galaxies and spiky foreground stars.

                    Tomorrow's picture: Fermi Friday [13]

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    Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff [25] (MTU [26] ) & Jerry Bonnell [27]
                                  (UMCP [28] )
          NASA Official:  Phillip Newman Specific rights apply [29] .
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              A service of: ASD [31]  at NASA [32]  / GSFC [33]
                           & Michigan Tech. U. [34]
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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1806/heic1811a_ngc3256_2048.jpg
  [3] http://spacetelescope.org/copyright/
  [4] https://www.nasa.gov/
  [5] http://www.esa.int/ESA
  [6] http://spacetelescope.org/
  [7] http://spacetelescope.org/news/heic1811/
  [8] http://spacetelescope.org/images/heic1811a/
  [9] https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.05941
  [10] https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.03577
  [11] http://burro.cwru.edu/JavaLab/GalCrashWeb/
  [12] http://hubblesite.org/image/2318/news_release/2008-16
  [13] ap180608.html
  [14] ap180606.html
  [15] archivepix.html
  [16] lib/apsubmit2015.html
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  [24] ap180608.html
  [25] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  [26] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  [27] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
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  [29] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
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  [34] http://www.mtu.edu/
