PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Hubble spots galaxies in close encounter

2013-06-20
(Press-News.org) Just below the centre of this image is the blue, twisted form of galaxy NGC 2936, one of the two interacting galaxies that form Arp 142 in the constellation of Hydra. Nicknamed "the Penguin" or "the Porpoise" by amateur astronomers, NGC 2936 used to be a standard spiral galaxy before being torn apart by the gravity of its cosmic companion.

The remnants of its spiral structure can still be seen — the former galactic bulge now forms the "eye" of the penguin, around which it is still possible to see where the galaxy's pinwheeling arms once were. These disrupted arms now shape the cosmic bird's "body" as bright streaks of blue and red across the image. These streaks arch down towards NGC 2936's nearby companion, the elliptical galaxy NGC 2937, visible here as a bright white oval. The pair show an uncanny resemblance to a penguin safeguarding its egg.

The effects of gravitational interaction between galaxies can be devastating. The Arp 142 pair are close enough together to interact violently, exchanging matter and causing havoc.

In the upper part of the image are two bright stars, both of which lie in the foreground of the Arp 142 pair. One of these is surrounded by a trail of sparkling blue material, which is actually another galaxy. This galaxy is thought to be too far away to play a role in the interaction — the same is true of the galaxies peppered around the body of NGC 2936. In the background are the blue and red elongated shapes of many other galaxies, which lie at vast distances from us — but which can all be seen by the sharp eye of Hubble.

This pair of galaxies is named after the American astronomer Halton Arp, the creator of the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, a catalogue of weirdly-shaped galaxies that was originally published in 1966. Arp compiled the catalogue in a bid to understand how galaxies evolved and changed shape over time, something he felt to be poorly understood. He chose his targets based on their strange appearances, but astronomers later realised that many of the objects in Arp's catalogue were in fact interacting and merging galaxies [1].

This image is a combination of visible and infrared light, created from data gathered by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Planetary Camera 3 (WFC3).



INFORMATION:

Notes

[1] The birth and evolution of various sets of merging galaxies was the subject of the book Cosmic Collisions - The Hubble Atlas of Merging Galaxies, produced by Springer and the European Southern Observatory. The book is illustrated with a range of stunning Hubble Space Telescope images.

More information

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Links



Images of Hubble: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/archive/category/spacecraft/

Cosmic Collisions - The Hubble Atlas of Merging Galaxies - http://www.cosmiccollisions.org/

Hubble Heritage site - http://heritage.stsci.edu/2013/23

NASA press release - http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2013/23

Contacts

Nicky Guttridge
ESA/Hubble
Garching, Germany
Tel: +49-89-3200-6855
Email: nguttrid@partner.eso.org



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Berkeley Lab confirms thirdhand smoke causes DNA damage

2013-06-20
A study led by researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has found for the first time that thirdhand smoke—the noxious residue that clings to virtually all surfaces long after the secondhand smoke from a cigarette has cleared out—causes significant genetic damage in human cells. Furthermore, the study also found that chronic exposure is worse than acute exposure, with the chemical compounds in samples exposed to chronic thirdhand smoke existing in higher concentrations and causing more DNA damage than samples exposed to acute thirdhand smoke, suggesting that ...

CNIO researchers discover a new gene involved in obesity

2013-06-20
The discovery of an unexpected function for a gene that was associated to another process in the organism might be a solution in search of a problem, a clue to unsuspected connections. That is what has happened with RAP1, a gene that protects telomeres— the ends of chromosomes—after researchers from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) surprisingly discovered its key role in obesity. "We still don't know what evolutionary significance to attach to it, but it is at the very least interesting that a telomere gene is related to obesity", says Maria Blasco, ...

Review: Composition of care team critical to improved outcomes for nursing home patients

2013-06-20
INDIANAPOLIS -- An interdisciplinary team that actively involves a nursing home patient's own physician plus a pharmacist has substantially better odds of improving the quality of nursing home care, according to a new systemic review of studies on long-term-stay patients' care. "CMS [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] mandates an interdisciplinary approach to nursing home care, so all U.S. nursing homes have teams, but the composition and activity of these teams vary," said Arif Nazir, M.D., Indiana University Center for Aging Research center scientist and assistant ...

Stroke symptoms associated with developing memory and thinking problems

2013-06-20
MINNEAPOLIS – People who experience any stroke symptoms—but do not have a stroke—may also be more likely to develop problems with memory and thinking, according to new research published in the June 19, 2013, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. "'Silent strokes' that cause small areas of brain damage have been tied to memory and thinking problems, but it has been difficult to study these 'silent strokes' due to the cost and inconvenience of obtaining brain MRIs," said study author Brendan J. Kelley, MD, of the University ...

Carbon nanotube harpoon catches individual brain-cell signals

2013-06-20
DURHAM, N.C. -- Neuroscientists may soon be modern-day harpooners, snaring individual brain-cell signals instead of whales with tiny spears made of carbon nanotubes. The new brain cell spear is a millimeter long, only a few nanometers wide and harnesses the superior electromechanical properties of carbon nanotubes to capture electrical signals from individual neurons. "To our knowledge, this is the first time scientists have used carbon nanotubes to record signals from individual neurons, what we call intracellular recordings, in brain slices or intact brains of vertebrates," ...

1 in 4 stroke patients suffer PTSD

2013-06-20
NEW YORK — One in four people who survive a stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) suffer from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) within the first year post-event, and one in nine experience chronic PTSD more than a year later. The data suggest that each year nearly 300,000 stroke/TIA survivors will develop PTSD symptoms as a result of their health scare. The study, led by Columbia University Medical Center researchers, was published today in the online edition of PLOS ONE. (Note: the paper will be available online once the embargo lifts: http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0066435). "This ...

Some parents want their child to redeem their broken dreams

2013-06-20
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Some parents desire for their children to fulfill their own unrealized ambitions, just as psychologists have long theorized, according to a new first-of-its-kind study. Researchers found the more that parents see their child as part of themselves, the more likely they are to want their child to succeed in achieving their own failed dreams. The results might help explain the actions of so-called "stage moms" or "sports dads" who push their sometimes-unwilling children to become stars of the stage or gridiron, said Brad Bushman, co-author of the study ...

Snail genetic tracks reveal ancient human migration

2013-06-20
Some snails in Ireland and the Pyrenees are genetically almost identical, perhaps because they were carried across the Atlantic during an 8000-year-old human migration. The snail genetics tie in with studies of human genetics and the colonization of Ireland, according to the research published June 19 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Angus Davison and colleagues from the University of Nottingham, UK. Despite being thousands of miles apart, one variety of banded wood snails from Ireland and southern France share similar shell patterns and mitochondrial genes that ...

Flu shot likely prevented 13 million illnesses, 110,000 hospitalizations from 2005-2011

2013-06-20
Approximately 13 million illnesses and over 110,00 hospitalizations may have been averted by the flu vaccine over the last 6 years in the U.S, according to calculations published June 19 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Deliana Kostova and colleagues from the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The researchers calculated the healthcare burden of flu cases that would have occurred in the absence of vaccination based on factors such as illness and hospitalization rates during the flu season, vaccination coverage and vaccine effectiveness. Based on these ...

Yield trends insufficient to double global crop production by 2050

2013-06-20
Crop yields worldwide are not increasing quickly enough to support estimated global needs in 2050, according to a study published June 19 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Deepak Ray and colleagues from the Institute on the Environment (IonE) at the University of Minnesota. Previous studies estimate that global agricultural production may need to increase by 60-110% to meet increasing demands and provide food security. In the current study, researchers assessed agricultural statistics from across the world and found that yields of four key crops- maize, rice, wheat ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Exercise as an anti-ageing intervention to avoid detrimental impact of mental fatigue

UMass Amherst Nursing Professor Emerita honored as ‘Living Legend’

New guidelines aim to improve cystic fibrosis screening

Picky eaters by day, buffet by night: Butterfly, moth diets sync to plant aromas

Pennington Biomedical’s Dr. Leanne Redman honored with the E. V. McCollum Award from the American Society for Nutrition

CCNY physicists uncover electronic interactions mediated via spin waves

Researchers’ 3D-printing formula may transform future of foam

Nurture more important than nature for robotic hand

Drug-delivering aptamers target leukemia stem cells for one-two knockout punch

New study finds that over 95% of sponsored influencer posts on Twitter were not disclosed

New sea grant report helps great lakes fish farmers navigate aquaculture regulations

Strain “trick” improves perovskite solar cells’ efficiency

How GPS helps older drivers stay on the roads

Estrogen and progesterone stimulate the body to make opioids

Dancing with the cells – how acoustically levitating a diamond led to a breakthrough in biotech automation

Machine learning helps construct an evolutionary timeline of bacteria

Cellular regulator of mRNA vaccine revealed... offering new therapeutic options

Animal behavioral diversity at risk in the face of declining biodiversity

Finding their way: GPS ignites independence in older adult drivers

Antibiotic resistance among key bacterial species plateaus over time

‘Some insects are declining but what’s happening to the other 99%?’

Powerful new software platform could reshape biomedical research by making data analysis more accessible

Revealing capillaries and cells in living organs with ultrasound

American College of Physicians awards $260,000 in grants to address equity challenges in obesity care

Researchers from MARE ULisboa discover that the European catfish, an invasive species in Portugal, has a prolonged breeding season, enhancing its invasive potential

Rakesh K. Jain, PhD, FAACR, honored with the 2025 AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research

Solar cells made of moon dust could power future space exploration

Deporting immigrants may further shrink the health care workforce

Border region emergency medical services in migrant emergency care

Resident physician intentions regarding unionization

[Press-News.org] Hubble spots galaxies in close encounter