Cosmic Collision Forges Galactic Ring
Model: gemini-2.0-flash-exp
Prompt version: 1.0
How could a Galaxy become shaped like a ring?
The rim of the blue galaxy pictured on the right is an immense ring-like structure 150,000 light years in diameter composed of newly formed, extremely bright, massive stars.
That galaxy, AM 0644-741, is known as a Ring Galaxy and was caused by an immense Galaxy Collision.
When galaxies collide, they pass through each other — their individual stars rarely come into contact.
The ring-like shape is the result of the gravitational disruption caused by an entire small intruder galaxy passing through a large one.
When this happens, interstellar gas and dust become condensed, causing a wave of star formation to move out from the impact point like a ripple across the surface of a pond.
The likely intruder galaxy is on the left of this combined image from Hubble Image (visible) and Chandra (X-ray) space telescopes.
X-ray light is shown in pink and depicts places where energetic Black Holes or Neutron Stars, likely formed shortly after the galaxy collision, reside.
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