None of the options are correct. These are three galaxies that lined up nicely for us in the line of sight
The astronomers used the corrective optics system of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the European Southern Observatory, and thus managed to penetrate through the dust clouds of the object that was nicknamed "the bird" because it resembles a winged creature. Using the corrective optics (a device known as NACO), several subtle details were revealed.
"Such examples of three galaxies of similar size are rare," says Petri Weissensen, lead scientist on the publication that appeared in the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. "Only an observation in the near-infrared range using the VLT made it possible to identify the nature of the object - that is, the triple merger of the system in this case."
The object photographed by NACO equipment, which looks like a bird with spread wings or a tinkerbell, reveals two distinct galaxies that form the body and wings of the "bird". The astronomers were surprised when in the new image they identified a third, spherical galaxy that forms the head. This galaxy, which is irregular but nevertheless quite massive, creates stars at a murderous rate - a rate of 200 solar masses per year. It appears to be the source of the system's great infrared brightness, even though it is the smallest of the three galaxies. The other two galaxies appear to be in a quieter phase in terms of star formation. The entire object is 650 million light-years away, with the wings alone spanning 100 light-years, the diameter of our Milky Way.
Follow-up observations using South Africa's New Large Telescope, and archival images taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope, confirmed the separate nature of the "bird's head", but added new surprises - the "head" and large parts of the "bird" are separating from each other at a rate of over 400 kilometers per second (1.4 million kilometers per hour). Observation of such velocities is itself rare even for other merging galaxies.
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Led. breach:
As Galileo had already proved, heavy bodies and light bodies move in the gravitational field in exactly the same way. So there is no reason for the black holes to migrate from the center of the galaxies to another place.
On the other hand, there are many reasons for the collisions of stars in the contact zone between the galaxies because unlike neighboring stars in a single galaxy that all move in a coordinated manner (after billions of years of "mutual adaptation"), the stars of two different galaxies are not coordinated and are on collision courses.
When the merger is finished and a long enough period has passed, the totality of the three galaxies will become one galaxy that looks like any other galaxy and the movements of the stars in it will be coordinated again.
Led. Peretz, thanks for the correction, it is of course 650 million light years.
The stars are not concentrated in a small place, but only the stars that emit infrared radiation,
By the way, someone understood what is meant by the sentence: "The whole object is 650 light years away, while the wings alone extend to a distance of 100 thousand light years, the diameter of our Milky Way."
Distance from whom? from us? It doesn't make sense and if we meant length why write distance!!
To Michael..I guess you are right but I treat the picture as a photograph although I imagined too much as to the place occupied by the black holes as rightly commented by Ami Bachar ..nonetheless there is several hundred times more activity here than in the other regions of the galaxies (according to the picture) almost as long as several Thousands of light years (if the length of the satellites is one hundred thousand light years.. then it is relative to them) and the question is why are the stars concentrated in such a small area? And how did they get there? And perhaps one of the answers is the tremendous power of the black holes that attract matter to them, and as we were informed in another article, they also create stars!!
Therefore, it is quite possible that the black holes generate a tremendous process of creating stars as catalysts or initial start-up and then the business runs by itself! In any case, it looks like a huge factory for the production of stars that is interesting if over time they are ejected out into space and create their own systems like our sun!
I assume there are answers and check this topic and what to do these articles are limited in place and rightfully so... who has the head for long articles!
to d. breach
Although these are artificial colors (because the photograph itself probably also included areas of radiation that the human eye does not recognize), according to the accepted practice of coloring such photographs, the illuminated areas are the "hotter" areas - those where there is more activity of collisions between old stars, their disintegration, and the formation new stars
Naturally, these phenomena occur more in the meeting areas between the galaxies.
Hello to Yehuda Svardamish,
Yehuda, please see my questions in the articles on the asteroid from 23.12
and on the strength of the diamond from 25.12.
Could you be nice and answer the questions for me and all of us?
If I'm not mistaken, the size of the supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies should be extremely small in relation to the galactic landscape and in an image of this size there is no chance to see or recognize such a supermassive black hole with the naked eye.
With my amateur eye I see most of the oc coming from the center..and since every galaxy has a huge black hole in its center (as is currently accepted) and since black holes create these flashes of light by dragging matter into them..does this imply that the black holes are close or close faster and merge before the clouds of dust and stars ??
And it would be interesting if it would be possible to guess what shape the center of the galaxy will take in the future by calculating the various forces acting between the three giant black holes!
It's more reminiscent of a dragonfly!