APOD: Arp 286: Trio in Virgo (2016 Jul 06)

[APOD Robot]

Arp 286: Trio in Virgo

Explanation: A remarkable telescopic composition in yellow and blue, this scene features a trio of interacting galaxies almost 90 million light-years away, toward the constellation Virgo. On the right, two, spiky, foreground Milky Way stars echo the trio galaxy hues, a reminder that stars in our own galaxy are like those in the distant island universes. With sweeping spiral arms and obscuring dust lanes, NGC 5566 is enormous, about 150,000 light-years across. Just above it lies small, blue NGC 5569. Near center, the third galaxy, NGC 5560, is multicolored and apparently stretched and distorted by its interaction with NGC 5566. The galaxy trio is also included in Halton Arp's 1966 Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies as Arp 286. Of course, such cosmic interactions are now appreciated as a common part of the evolution of galaxies.

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[Boomer12k]

Lovely...

:---[===] *

[Ann]

It's good to see such a deep and detailed image of a trio of galaxies that don't often get their portrait taken.

Huge NGC 5566 has a very interesting shape. It sports two long, rather thin, sweeping, very elegant dusty arms that contain some star formation. The lower arm seems to emanate from the blue ring - the bluest part of the galaxy - but I think that the seeming connection is an illusion. Just below the ring the lower arm displays a fantastic "pearls-on-a-string" lineup of more than ten pink nebulas and blue clusters.

The shape of the arms creates what looks like a closed figure eight, although at lower right streamers of material escape from the main disk of the galaxy at right angles. Inside the arms, the disk is filled with a diffuse, pale glow. It would seem that most of the disk is made up of an old to intermediate population of stars. Overall, NGC 5566 appears to be a quite red galaxy, heavily dominated by old to intermediate stars. The amount of dust in NGC 5566 is rather small.

Fascinatingly, the "upper part" of the disk of NGC 5566 contains some brilliantly orange objects. At least one of these objects is clearly elongated, so that it must be a background galaxy. But the brightest orange object looks like one member of an arc of differently colored objects, as if a reddened background galaxy had insinuated itself right between two similarly-sized blue clusters in NGC 5566. It looks strange. Most of the background of today's APOD lacks saturated orange objects altogether. Today's APOD must be a composite object.

NGC 1566.

The small satellite galaxy of NGC 5566, NGC 5569, looks bluish mostly because it lacks a bright yellow population. It is actually shaped like a faint Sc galaxy, with incipient arms at right and left. Its shape is actually somewhat reminiscent of bright, beautiful NGC 1566, although NGC 5569 is many times fainter and less organized, with faint arms mostly lacking in star formation. Pink nebulas and blue clusters in NGC 5569 are faint and mostly scattered, although a curving line of nebulas and clusters trace out a lovely arc shape.

Integral sign galaxy, UGC 3697.

The third galaxy, elongated, slightly S-shaped NGC 5560, is clearly affected by tidal forces. Out of the three galaxies here, NGC 5560 may contain the largest blue population. We can clearly see the thin and the thick disk of NGC 5560: the thin disk is mostly blue and dusty, whereas the thick disk is diffuse and neutral-colored. A diffuse halo of stars can be seen above and below the bright yellow center of the galaxy.

This is a fascinating image! Thanks!

Ann

[heehaw]

Over (say) just the last billion years, I wonder how many astronomers on "Earths" in those three galaxies, have taken pictures of OUR galaxy, at some time or other? We'd love to have one of those photos!

[alcor]

Yeah, a lovely trio of galaxies. Where each galaxy has its kind of blue content.

How good can it then be I just started listening to Rhapsody in Blue , by George Gershwin (at i.e. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFHdRkeEnpM), on the public Swedish radio. This radio is streaming classic music around the clock, among several streams. Rhapsody in Blue is by the way is one of my favorites by Gerswhin .

//arne

[Fred the Cat]

Don't suppose you considered the title "Ménage à trois in Virgo"? It really only translates to a "household of three". "Non toi idiot!" (needs no translation) The image does have a certain, how should I say, "je ne sais quoi" about it. Oui?

[starsurfer]

Don't suppose you considered the title "Ménage à trois in Virgo"? It really only translates to a "household of three". "Non toi idiot!" (needs no translation) The image does have a certain, how should I say, "je ne sais quoi" about it. Oui?

Sacre bleu!