Starship Asterisk*

NGC 6240 offers a rare glimpse of a cosmic catastrophe in its final throes. The titanic galaxy-galaxy collision is located a mere 400 million light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus. One of the brightest sources in the infrared sky, the merging galaxies spew distorted tidal tails of stars, gas, and dust and undergo frantic bursts of star formation. The two supermassive black holes in the original galactic cores will also coalesce into a single, even more massive black hole. Soon, only one large galaxy will remain

harry wrote:NGC 6240: Merging Galaxies
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090618.html

NGC 6240 offers a rare glimpse of a cosmic catastrophe in its final throes. The titanic galaxy-galaxy collision is located a mere 400 million light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus. One of the brightest sources in the infrared sky, the merging galaxies spew distorted tidal tails of stars, gas, and dust and undergo frantic bursts of star formation. The two supermassive black holes in the original galactic cores will also coalesce into a single, even more massive black hole. Soon, only one large galaxy will remain

Its not really the final throe, its part of the evolution of changing formation of galaxies.

makc wrote: http://blogs.discovery.com/earth/2009/0 ... amera.html

Chris Peterson wrote:Not really a catastrophe, either. Collisions like this rejuvenate large areas into star forming regions. And any planets in those galaxies with life are likely to carry on unaffected.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6240 wrote:
<<NGC 6240 is a well-studied nearby ultraluminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) in the constellation Ophiuchus. The galaxy is the remnant of a merger between two smaller galaxies. The collision between the two progenitor galaxies has resulted in a single larger galaxy with two distinct nuclei and a highly disturbed structure, including faint extensions and loops.

The power sources of ULIRGs in general has been greatly debated. Infrared light from galaxies generally originates from dust in the interstellar medium. ULIRGs are notable in that they are abnormally bright in the infrared. The infrared dust emission in ULIRGs is over one trillion times more luminous than the Sun. Astronomers have speculated that either intense star formation regions or active galactic nuclei (which contain supermassive black holes) may be responsible for the intense dust heating that produces this emission, although the general consensus is that both may be present in most ULIRGs. Studying the exact nature of ULIRGs has been difficult, however, because the dust in the centers of these galaxies obscures both visible and near-infrared starlight and because theoretical models of both starbursts and active galactic nuclei have demonstrated that they may look similar. Because NGC 6240 is a nearby example of such a ULIRG, astronomers have studied it intensively to understand its power source.


X-ray image of NGC 6240 taken with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, superimposed on an optical image of the galaxy.
The X-ray emission from the two active galactic nuclei can be seen as bright blue point sources. Credit: NASA.

Observations performed by Stefanie Komossa and collaborators with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory have detected strong hard X-ray emission from both of the nuclei. The intensity of this emission and the presence of emission from lowly ionized or neutral iron indicate that both of the nuclei are active galactic nuclei. Presumably, these are the black holes that were originally at the centers of the two merging galaxies. Over the course of millions of years, the two black holes are expected to come closer together and form a binary supermassive black hole.>>

neufer wrote:I'd prefer not to be in the vicinity of two X-ray emitting active galactic nuclei
doing the pasa doble, if it's all the same to you.

orin stepanek wrote:There could be a few stars that got left out of the galaxy after the formation. Life forms living around such a star probably wouldn't even think of interstellar travel as the distances would be even more unreachable than they are within a galaxy.

Chris Peterson wrote:It seems doubtful intelligent species even survive millions of years.

bystander wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:It seems doubtful intelligent species even survive millions of years.

Especially if they are as bent on self destruction as we seem to be.

Chris Peterson wrote:

neufer wrote:I'd prefer not to be in the vicinity of two X-ray emitting active galactic nuclei
doing the pasa doble, if it's all the same to you.

Agreed. But in order to end up there, I'd think it's most likely you were near one or the other to begin with. So you're either adapted to that environment, or you weren't there in the first place to worry about it.

• -----------------------------------------------
  Tom Lehrer's Masochism Tango
  
  I ache for the touch of your lips, Dear,
  But much more for the touch of your whips, Dear.
  You can raise welts
  Like nobody else,
  As we dance to the Masochism Tango.
  
  Let our love be a flame, not an ember,
  Say it's me that you want to dismember.
  Blacken my eye,
  Set fire to my tie,
  As we dance to the Masochism Tango.
  
  At your command
  Before you here I stand,
  My heart is in my hand. Ecch!
  It's here that I must be.
  My heart entreats,
  Just hear those savage beats,
  And go put on your cleats
  And come and trample me.
  Your heart is hard as stone or mahogany,
  That's why I'm in such exquisite agony.
  
  My soul is on fire,
  It's aflame with desire,
  Which is why I perspire
  When we tango.
  
  You caught my nose
  In your left castanet, Love,
  I can feel the pain yet, Love,
  Ev'ry time I hear drums.
  And I envy the rose
  That you held in your teeth, Love,
  With the thorns underneath, Love,
  Sticking into your gums.
  
  Your eyes cast a spell that bewitches.
  The last time I needed twenty stitches
  To sew up the gash
  That you made with your lash,
  As we danced to the Masochism Tango.
  
  Bash in my brain,
  And make me scream with pain,
  Then kick me once again,
  And say we'll never part.
  I know too well
  I'm underneath your spell,
  So, Darling, if you smell
  Something burning, it's my heart.
  Excuse me!
  
  Take your cigarette from its holder,
  And burn your initials in my shoulder.
  Fracture my spine,
  And swear that you're mine,
  As we dance to the Masochism Tango.
  ----------------------------------------------

neufer wrote:The colliding galaxies could both have had inactive black holes at their centers
until the impinging gases from the other galaxy activated them.[/list]