NASA recently shared on social media a picture of two galaxies captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, which appear to be entangled with each other.
In the shot, the two starry galaxies could be seen doing a ‘delicate’ dance. The galaxies have been named separately, the lower one is named NGC 5953 by NASA, clearly, tugs at the galaxy on the upper right named NGC 5954, which appears to extend one spiral arm downward. As informed by NASA, this delicate dance takes place more than 100 million light-years from Earth.
The two interacting galaxies have been named Arp 91.
NASA further informed that NGC 5953 is clearly tugging at NGC 5954, which looks like it is extending one spiral arm downward. The immense gravitational attraction of the two galaxies is causing them to interact, such gravitational interactions are common and an important part of galactic evolution.
NASA’s Instagram post on two spiral galaxies reads, “NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captures the delicate dance between two interacting galaxies. Setting the scene at more than 100 million light-years away from Earth, the lower galaxy clearly tugs at the galaxy on the upper right, which appears to extend one spiral arm downward.”
It also added “The two galaxies are classified as spiral, but their shapes appear different due to their orientation in respect to Earth. Astronomers think that collisions between spiral galaxies like this can lead to the formation of another type of galaxy, known as elliptical galaxies. As extremely massive and energetic these collisions may be, it is no quickstep. Collisions like these often take place over hundreds of millions of years, so we should not expect this dancing pair to look any different during the course of our lifetimes.”
One user wrote, “This is just beyond beautiful!” While another user wrote, “Absolutely breath-taking!!”
