Hubble Finds Galaxy's Stars Scattered Far from Home

This mesmerizing observation by the Hubble Space Telescope shows galaxy NGC 7714 in a state of turmoil.

Between 100-200 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed Earth, NGC 7714 got too close to another galaxy (NGC 7715, out of frame, right) and the extreme tidal forces dragged one of its once-elegant spiral arms deep into intergalactic space. The scattered stars now form a stellar bridge to the second galaxy, exchanging star-forming material.

Both galaxies are approximately 100 million light-years from Earth.

This violent galactic collision wasn’t all bad news for NGC 7714, however. The encounter caused disruption in the interstellar gasses it contains, triggering a wave of new star formation throughout the galactic spirals. The wave of star birth has been captured as bright blue by Hubble’s optics.

Due to the frenzied birth of new stars, astronomers refer to NGC 7714 as a Wolf-Rayet starburst galaxy. Many of the young, massive stars are known as Wolf-Rayets, which as very massive, hot, tumultuous stars that live fast and die young, shedding huge quantities of superheated gases before they erupt as supernovae.

So what started as a violent galactic collision, ended up as a frenzy of star birth that, eventually, will see the Wolf-Rayets explode, seeding NGC 7714 with heavier elements that will go on to form other stars and, ultimately, star systems.

From Discovery News