Galaxies Don Mask of Stars in New Spitzer Image

[telfrow]

<i>A pair of dancing galaxies appears dressed for a cosmic masquerade in a new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The infrared picture shows what looks like two icy blue eyes staring through an elaborate, swirling red mask. These "eyes" are actually the cores of two merging galaxies, called NGC 2207 and IC 2163, which recently met and began to twirl around each other. <br /><br />The "mask" is made up of the galaxies' twisted spiral arms. Dotted along the arms, like strings of decorative pearls, are dusty clusters of newborn stars. This is the first time that clusters of this type, called "beads on a string" by astronomers, have been seen in NGC 2207 and IC 2163. <br /><br />"This is the most elaborate case of beading we've seen in galaxies," said Dr. Debra Elmegreen of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. "They are evenly spaced and sized along the arms of both galaxies." <br /><br />Elmegreen is lead author of a paper describing the Spitzer observations in the May 1 issue of the Astrophysical Journal. <br /><br />Astronomers say the beads were formed when the galactic duo first met. "The galaxies shook each other, causing gas and dust to move around and collect into pockets dense enough to collapse gravitationally," said Dr. Kartik Sheth of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Once this material condensed into thick bead-like clouds, stars of various sizes began to pop up within them.</i><br /><br />Link to full story<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>