{"id":24695,"date":"2011-01-13T17:10:21","date_gmt":"2011-01-13T17:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2011\/01\/13\/wise-targets-shoots-two-galaxi\/"},"modified":"2011-01-13T17:10:21","modified_gmt":"2011-01-13T17:10:21","slug":"wise-targets-shoots-two-galaxi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/13\/wise-targets-shoots-two-galaxi\/","title":{"rendered":"WISE targets, shoots two galaxies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>But in a scientific way not a nasty political way.  Have a look:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/472\/files\/2012\/04\/i-97d8c6a8a91ca56ec9ca4ebbb9b3574f-two_galexies.jpg?w=604\" alt=\"i-97d8c6a8a91ca56ec9ca4ebbb9b3574f-two_galexies.jpg\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There are many things in this picture that are quite remarkable.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nBoth of these galaxies are spiral galaxies.  You can see that clearly in the blue one at the bottom of the photo.  The yellow one at top is as well, but you are looking at it edge on, with the main spiral being a cigar-shaped zone tilted just off the horizontal.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps these galaxies looked more similar to each other in the past, but they recently (a few hundred million years ago) ran into each other.  When that happened, the yellow looking one on top in the photo was changed so that it started making stars at a very high rate.  Star formation involves frequent and large bursts of energy, and this is reflected in the bright infrared WISE detects, converted here into a color you can see.  What looks like myriad rays emanating from the galaxy in sufficient quantity to give it a glowing ball effect are, indeed, myriad rays emanating from the galaxy.<\/p>\n<p>But wait, there&#8217;s more.  Astronomers have calculated that these two galaxies will continue to interact, probably running into each other again, and eventually, merge into one galaxy.<\/p>\n<p>Click <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jpl.nasa.gov\/news\/news.cfm?release=2011-016&#038;cid=release_2011-016\">here<\/a> to read more about Messier 81 and Messier 82.  I wonder what they&#8217;ll be called when they turn into one?  Messier 163?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>But in a scientific way not a nasty political way. Have a look: There are many things in this picture that are quite remarkable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[191],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-6qj","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24695"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}