Crashing Galaxies: New Insights into our Future National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC
Free, Tickets Required
4:30 p.m. Discovery Station (in front of Welcome Center) 5:45p.m. Planetarium presentation 6:45 p.m. Telescope observing at Public Observatory, weather permitting
Galaxies evolve and grow by interacting and merging with each other. However, since this process takes hundreds of millions to billions of years, we cannot watch a single collision from start to finish, but must instead study a variety of colliding galaxies at different stages. Galaxy interactions spark the formation of new stars, whose emission is studied in ultraviolet and infrared satellite imaging. Lauranne Lanz will discuss this new research which provides insights into the formation of the Milky Way through such collisions, and the future collision of the Milky Way and our neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy.
The Smithsonian’s Stars Lecture Series is made possible by a grant from NASA.
According to NASA, "IC 4687 forms a triplet with two other galaxies: IC 4686 to the right and IC 4689 further to the right. IC 4687 has a chaotic body of stars, gas and dust and a large curly tail to the left. The two companions are partially obscured by dark bands of dust. The interacting triplet is about 250 million light-years away from Earth, in the constellation of Pavo, the Peacock.
This image is part of a large collection of 59 images of merging galaxies taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released on the occasion of its 18th anniversary on 24th April 2008."
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