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1. Interacting Galaxies
Astronomers think that our Milky Way galaxy will collide with our neighbor spiral galaxy, Andromeda, several billions of years from now. This artist’s illustration depicts just such a collision in its early stages, which is one of the ways that galaxies grow. Studying galaxy collisions can help scientists learn about the Universe when it was much younger and these kinds of galactic mergers were much more common.
Astronomers think that our Milky Way galaxy will collide with our neighbor spiral galaxy, Andromeda, several billions of years from now. This artist’s illustration depicts just such a collision in its early stages, which is one of the ways that galaxies grow. Studying galaxy collisions can help scientists learn about the Universe when it was much younger and these kinds of galactic mergers were much more common.
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2. Illustrations of Black Hole Eclipse
These artist's representations, which are not to scale, explain how a supermassive black hole and the hot gas disk around it are eclipsed. The first illustration shows how light from the bright disk surrounding the black hole can directly reach Chandra. The second illustration demonstrates how this light can be blocked by a dense cloud of gas, which causes only reflected light from the disk to reach Chandra.
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These artist's representations, which are not to scale, explain how a supermassive black hole and the hot gas disk around it are eclipsed. The first illustration shows how light from the bright disk surrounding the black hole can directly reach Chandra. The second illustration demonstrates how this light can be blocked by a dense cloud of gas, which causes only reflected light from the disk to reach Chandra.
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3. NGC 1569 Illustration
This illustration depicts the orientation of NGC 1569 and the line of sight from which Chandra observed it. Most of the X-ray halo emanates from the central disk of the galaxy, which is inclined at an angle of 60 degrees to Earth. This means that the northern lobe of X-ray emission from NGC 1569 is largely blocked from Chandra's view, while the southern lobe appears to be more prominent.
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This illustration depicts the orientation of NGC 1569 and the line of sight from which Chandra observed it. Most of the X-ray halo emanates from the central disk of the galaxy, which is inclined at an angle of 60 degrees to Earth. This means that the northern lobe of X-ray emission from NGC 1569 is largely blocked from Chandra's view, while the southern lobe appears to be more prominent.
Related Photo Album
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