Triple merger of galaxies?

[Dragon Star]

Wow, the first ever triple merger of galaxies to date. Very exciting.

http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/p.../pr-55-07.html

ScienceDaily (Dec. 20, 2007) — Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, an international team of astronomers [1] has discovered a stunning rare case of a triple merger of galaxies. This system, which astronomers have dubbed 'The Bird' - albeit it also bears resemblance with a cosmic Tinker Bell - is composed of two massive spiral galaxies and a third irregular galaxy.



The galaxy ESO 593-IG 008, or IRAS 19115-2124, was previously merely known as an interacting pair of galaxies at a distance of 650 million light-years. But surprises were revealed by observations made with the NACO instrument attached to ESO's VLT, which peered through the all-pervasive dust clouds, using adaptive optics to resolve the finest details [2].
Underneath the chaotic appearance of the optical Hubble images - retrieved from the Hubble Space Telescope archive - the NACO images show two unmistakable galaxies, one a barred spiral while the other is more irregular.
The surprise lay in the clear identification of a third, clearly separate component, an irregular, yet fairly massive galaxy that seems to be forming stars at a frantic rate.
"Examples of mergers of three galaxies of roughly similar sizes are rare," says Petri Väisänen, lead author of the paper reporting the results. "Only the near-infrared VLT observations made it possible to identify the triple merger nature of the system in this case."
Because of the resemblance of the system to a bird, the object was dubbed as such, with the 'head' being the third component, and the 'heart' and 'body' making the two major galaxy nuclei in-between of tidal tails, the 'wings'. The latter extend more than 100,000 light-years, or the size of our own Milky Way.
Subsequent optical spectroscopy with the new Southern African Large Telescope, and archive mid-infrared data from the NASA Spitzer space observatory, confirmed the separate nature of the 'head', but also added further surprises. The 'head' and major parts of the 'Bird' are moving apart at more than 400 km/s (1.4 million km/h!). Observing such high velocities is very rare in merging galaxies. Also, the 'head' appears to be the major source of infrared luminosity in the system, though it is the smallest of the three galaxies.

*Fixed link.

[ozzmoziz]

url is dead ,

[Dragon Star]

Originally Posted by ozzmoziz

url is dead ,

I found another to substitute in it's place, thanks for the heads up.

[Darryl]

Originally Posted by ozzmoziz

url is dead ,

It worked for me, its just a little slow.

[Darryl]

Originally Posted by Dragon Star

I found another to substitute in it's place, thanks for the heads up.

I guess thats why it just worked .

[Dragon Star]

lol, good timing Darryl.

[Blue Fire]

Whoa! Looks like my previous post (the one before Buldric's last) about the Milky Way also being part of a triple merger somehow got moved to a new thread "Nearest Galaxy Colliding with Milky Way" here in the Deep Sky subforum: Nearest Galaxy Colliding With Milky Way
I think that's what Buldric was replying to.

[Buldric]

Yea yea, I know, my ability to say what I actually mean can be a little fuddled at times...doesn't help when the post I'm commenting on doesn't exist anymore either . But ya nailed it on the head of what I meant!

Clear Skies,
Buldric


(edit) Woot for this post making me a "senior member" lol...

[Darryl]

Originally Posted by Buldric

Yea yea, I know, my ability to say what I actually mean can be a little fuddled at times...doesn't help when the post I'm commenting on doesn't exist anymore either. But ya nailed it on the head of what I meant!

Clear Skies,
Buldric


(edit) Woot for this post making me a "senior member" lol...

I didn't catch the "we" are under attack. It makes sense now which post you were commenting on. I've now moved your reply as well.