Hubble discovers a sublime collision of galaxies. One of the telescope’s latest highlights?
L’Space still has a lot of secrets to tell us. In the meantime, our devices, on Earth or not, regularly deliver absolutely sumptuous shots. Whether it’s known celestial objects, mysterious phenomena yet unexplained or otherwise, one can only be captivated by this beauty. Today it’s Hubble which regales us.
Hubble discovers a sublime collision of galaxies
Hubble continues to send us magnificent shots despite the service of the télescope spatial James Webb. The American (NASA) and European (ESA) space agencies have unveiled a new image taken by Hubble of Arp-Madore 417-391, a strange collision of galaxies about 670 million light years away. Their gravitational tug of war has produced a strange ring shape with the two galactic cores relatively close together and the “feathers” of the stars forming a circle.
The telescope discovered this cosmic dance using its instrument Advanced Camera for Surveys, which has already detected strange galaxies and even dark matter. Researchers are using this device in orbit to put together a list of more interesting coordinates to observe more accurately with the new and more powerful James Webb Telescope, a telescope that has already been used in tandem with Hubble to study celestial objects.
One of the telescope’s latest highlights?
You won’t necessarily see Hubble making these sorts of discoveries for very long, though. Indeed, the telescope has experienced a number of failures in its system in recent years and it should fall back to Earth as early as 2030 if no intervention is carried out by then. Although NASA and SpaceX are considering boosting Hubble’s orbit to keep it active, the satellite is not guaranteed to live much longer. This collision of galaxies could therefore be one of the last blows of the telescope, even if this observatory still has several years to spend in space.