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NGC 4438 & NGC 4435:
Galactic Fender-Bender In Virgo
This Chandra image shows multimillion degree gas in two galaxies in the Virgo galaxy
cluster that are now more than 100,000 light years apart. In NGC 4438, the larger galaxy in the
lower part of the image, filaments of hot gas have been pulled to the right of the galaxy. The
hot gas in the smaller galaxy, NGC 4435 (upper right), is concentrated around its central
region.
Combined X-ray, optical, and radio observations indicate that the two galaxies bumped into
each other in the relatively recent past, about 100 million years ago. The collision was
apparently a glancing one, in which the galaxies came within about 16,000 light years of
each other. Such collisions are relatively common in the crowded confines of the Virgo
galaxy cluster. The center of the cluster contains hundreds of galaxies whizzing around at
speeds of millions of miles per hour.
During the encounter between NGC4438 and NGC 4435, gravitational tidal
forces tugged at the gas and stars on the outer parts of the galaxies.
NGC 4438 was damaged in the collision, but the hot gas will probably
fall back into the disk of the galaxy in a few hundred million years.
NGC 4435, being less massive than NGC 4438, proved to be less crash
worthy and appears to have lost most of its hot gas to intergalactic
space.
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Facts for NGC 4438 & NGC 4435: |
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Credit
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NASA/CXC/M.Machacek et al.
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Scale
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Image is 397 x 553 arcsec. |
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Category
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Normal
Galaxies & Starburst Galaxies
Groups &
Clusters of Galaxies |
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Coordinates
(J2000)
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RA 12h 27m 45.60s | Dec +13º
00' 32.00" |
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Constellation
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Virgo |
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Observation
Date
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January 29, 2002 |
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Observation
Time
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6.9 hours |
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Obs.
ID
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2883 |
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Color
Code
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Energy (Red 0.3-1.5 keV, Green
1.5-2.5 keV, Blue 2.5-6.0 keV) |
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Instrument
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ACIS
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Distance
Estimate
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50 million light years |
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Reference
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M. Machacek et al. 2003 submitted
to the Astrophys. J. |
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