                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2022 November 8
    The featured image shows a several interacting spiral galaxies with a
    bridge of stars and gas connecting the two brightest galaxies. Please
             see the explanation for more detailed information.

                    Galaxies: Wild's Triplet from Hubble
                 Image Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, Dark Energy
          Survey/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA, J. Dalcanton

   Explanation: How many galaxies are interacting here? This grouping of
   galaxies is called the Wild Triplet, not only for the discoverer, but
   for the number of bright galaxies that appear. It had been assumed that
   all three galaxies, collectively cataloged as Arp 248, are interacting,
   but more recent investigations reveal that only the brightest two
   galaxies are sparring gravitationally: the big galaxies at the top and
   bottom. The spiral galaxy in the middle of the featured image by the
   Hubble Space Telescope is actually far in the distance, as is the
   galaxy just below it and all of the other numerous galaxies in the
   field. A striking result of these giants jousting is a tremendous
   bridge of stars, gas, and dust that stretches between them -- a bridge
   almost 200,000 light-years long. Light we see today from Wild's Triplet
   left about 200 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. In
   perhaps a billion years or so, the two interacting galaxies will merge
   to form a single large spiral galaxy.

                     Tomorrow's picture: nebular mystery
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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