Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a striking new photo of Arp 298, a pair of interacting galaxies in the constellation of Pegasus.
This Hubble image shows the Arp 298 galaxy pair. The color image includes ultraviolet, optical and infrared observations from both Hubble’s WFC3 and ACS instruments. It is based on data obtained through seven filters. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / A. Evans / R. Chandar.
Arp 298 is located about 206 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Pegasus.
“The ‘Arp’ in this galaxy pair’s name signifies that they are listed in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies compiled by the astronomer Halton Arp,” Hubble astronomers explained.
“His atlas is a gallery of weird and wonderful galaxies containing peculiar structures, featuring galaxies exhibiting everything from segmented spiral arms to concentric rings.”
Arp 298 comprises two galaxies: the barred spiral galaxy NGC 7469 and its smaller spiral companion, IC 5283.
Discovered by the English astronomer John Herschel on November 12, 1784, NGC 7469 is also classified as the Seyfert galaxy. It hosts an active supermassive black hole and a bright ring of star clusters. IC 5283 was discovered by the French astronomer Guillaume Bigourdan on September 4, 1891.
“The new image of Arp 298 contains data from three separate Hubble proposals,” the researchers said.
“By combining observations from three proposals, Arp 298 is captured in glorious detail in seven different filters from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).”
“The process of planning Hubble observations starts with a proposal — a detailed plan of what an astronomer intends to observe and their scientific motivation for doing so,” they added.
“Once a year, these proposals are gathered and judged in a grueling review process which assess their scientific merit and feasibility.”
“Fewer than 20% of the proposed observations in any given year will make it through this process and be approved, which makes observing time with Hubble highly prized indeed.”
Source: Sci-News.com, by Enrico de Lazaro, February 21, 2022
