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patco81 t1_j97cyar wrote

I think my home planet is in there, somewhere.

Beam me up, Snotty.

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alabasterwilliams t1_j97hb7x wrote

It’s a good thing the whalers didn’t discover this first, or it would have a wildly different name.

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Jed1M1ndTr1ck t1_j97l7oj wrote

Yup, tadpole is the first thing I saw. Yessirree.

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Horror-Professional1 t1_j97lwwl wrote

Honestly every time I see images like this I am blown away at how amazing and huge our galaxy is. It’s like an ecosystem of cosmic bodies instead of animals. Beautiful.

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Chiliconkarma t1_j97okk4 wrote

What does it take for a galaxy to unravel like that? What is the likely future of such a situation?

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Davicho77 OP t1_j97owyx wrote

Replying to Chiliconkarma (#1,875,429)

When two galaxies come close to each other, the gravitational forces between them can cause them to distort and deform. In the case of the tadpole galaxy, it is believed that the gravitational forces from the nearby galaxy have pulled material out of the galaxy, creating the long, thin tail-like structure.

This type of interaction is known as "tidal stripping," and it is thought to be responsible for the formation of many other tail-like structures in galaxies. As the two galaxies continue to interact, the tidal forces can cause more material to be pulled out of the tadpole galaxy, further elongating the tail.

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purchankruly t1_j97pc6j wrote

Imagine your night view on your small planet in the tail.

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terabranford t1_j97qx8d wrote

I realize something like this may take forever to answer, but: is the tail moving at all?

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Emerald_Rain4 t1_j97uiur wrote

This is just crazy. What makes it even more crazy is the other galaxies that are in the picture

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HappyMaskSalesPerson t1_j97vnok wrote

Hubble telescope still pulling its weight and giving us glorious pictures. I much enjoy this image.

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MovingFjordward t1_j97xn88 wrote

The night sky views from anywhere in that galaxy must be incredible!!

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jducer t1_j985d46 wrote

The fact that it would take 2800 lifetimes traveling at the speed of light (assuming 100 years per life) to travel that trail blows my fucking mind….

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Barrrrrrnd t1_j989qeq wrote

There are SO MANY galaxies in this picture. Jeez.

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Jackalodeath t1_j98fgej wrote

Replying to terabranford (#1,876,364)

Got nosey; according to this article by NASA, it's presumed the tail will "break off" over the course of its progenitor galaxy's lifetime; a long fucken time from now. Its thought to have been formed from a collision with a smaller, blue, "blob-like" galaxy - which is visible in the upper left of the Tadpoles' "head," inside one of its spiral arms - that has managed to get about 300,000 light-years away from its "victim" since.

All info gleaned from linked article.

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Hispanoamericano2000 t1_j98mlwc wrote

The sheer number of entire Galaxies alone in this image apart from the Tadpole Galaxy... holy cow.

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throwawaynotes81 t1_j98q364 wrote

Not one person in the comments has made the obvious joke waiting-to-happen. I am impressed.

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Decronym t1_j98tbns wrote

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

|Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |ESA|European Space Agency| |HST|Hubble Space Telescope| |JWST|James Webb infra-red Space Telescope|

^(1 acronyms in this thread; )^(the most compressed thread commented on today)^( has acronyms.)
^([Thread #8587 for this sub, first seen 20th Feb 2023, 03:14]) ^[FAQ] ^([Full list]) ^[Contact] ^([Source code])

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Monoken3 t1_j99b8r9 wrote

Somebody is getting yeeted from the tail as we speak

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aupa0205 t1_j99bahx wrote

Man I could’ve used this galaxy in my recent Stellaris playthrough. Those choke points though.

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wowsosquare t1_j99cnp1 wrote

Replying to Davicho77 (#1,875,452)

>When two galaxies come close to each other...

I thought this was going to be The Talk about when the Mommy galaxy and the Daddy galaxy give each other a very special hug. Was disappoint.

THAT SAID, when galaxies collide, how does it effect what's happening on a any given planet or solar system in the colliding galaxies? Because for the most part everything just zips right past everything else, right? There's very little matter actually colliding

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Staltrad t1_j99d6f3 wrote

I wonder what happens when he reaches the Egg galaxy 😅

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PlutoDelic t1_j99esfc wrote

Safe to assume this is caused by a merge? This is incredible, first time seeing it.

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Weazy-N420 t1_j99qyij wrote

Absolutely Stunning!!! But….. I would’ve totally called it something else…….. : D

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Kossimer t1_j99xp0w wrote

Replying to wowsosquare (#1,880,740)

Right, almost no matter at all collides. The biggest change any star system may find is being ejected from its galaxy, but everything inside the star system keeps orbiting as normal, the planets around the star don't mind. Star formation may be invigorated by colliding and collapsing dust clouds. If life exists on a planet in a colliding galaxy, the other galaxy looming large in the sky would make observation and science virtually impossible for any part of space behind it.

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Rath_MC t1_j99xuix wrote

can someone explain what's causing a disturbance?
is it collision with another galaxy or something?

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wowsosquare t1_j99y89i wrote

Replying to Kossimer (#1,882,065)

What about all the dust and hydrogen that's in the interstellar medium and maybe More dense in solar aysi... could the relative speeds of colliding galaxies give you all those dangerous effects of traveling at high speeds?

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Gh0sth4nd t1_j9a5dbg wrote

420 million lightyears an unimaginable distance

i wonder if someone from a far away galaxy is looking at the milky way and wonders if the alien life they are looking for is there to find

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pixoxri t1_j9aqs6h wrote

420 MILLION lightyears. I can't even fully grasp how something can be so unbelievably huge and it's still just a tiny, tiny dot in all that space. If I could wish for one thing in my life, it would be to have been born much later in time when we know more about space. It's so hard to comprehend and it saddens me that I will die before we really know what it all means.

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morningcoffee1 t1_j9asrcq wrote

Replying to Rath_MC (#1,882,078)

Yup. Collision or a close flyby. For galaxies this is relatively common. Our own Milky Way

will experience something similar with the Andromeda Galaxy, because we're on a collision course.

But no worry, in general galaxies collide, but individual stars do not. Plus it's still a bit of a wait.

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Durable_me t1_j9aw4e2 wrote

It's crazy to see that in this image 95% of the light spots are also galaxies...

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morningcoffee1 t1_j9b2w8v wrote

Replying to Rath_MC (#1,885,839)

actually... its a dance of life :-)

If you look at the above image you see a blue hue, and even some bright blue areas: that is all star formation of new hot blue (O& B) type stars... billions of them. And that all occurs because of the collision.

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Super_Automatic t1_j9bfeiy wrote

Replying to kipperforskipper (#1,880,544)

How is this bad? Once life has already formed, there is no evidence that belonging to a galaxy is of any use.

It may in fact be advantageous to be in the an area of reduced density, as there is a reduced probability of 'debris'. It is noted in fact, that our own sun travels in a way which oscillates above and below the galactic plane, and that we are currently above the galactic plane, which may explain why we have not experienced outsized meteor events.

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Kossimer t1_j9bhim2 wrote

Replying to wowsosquare (#1,882,111)

The interstellar medium is less dense outside of galaxies, but it's already very sparse and it doesn't do much. It makes no difference to a star system that might be outside of a galaxy.

A star would have to make a near pass with a black hole or a neutron star to be slingshot into relativistic speeds, which almost certainly would not happen to a single star in a galaxy collision, statistically speaking. A star does not need to travel nearly the speed of light to escape a galaxy, but stars also almost never escape anyway because galactic collisions are so rare and are one of the few events capable of doing it. More likely, a star that escapes a galaxy is somewhere in a tail of matter being pulled away slowly from its home galaxy via a collision like pictured in the post, in a small chunk that the galaxy's gravity never recaptures.

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SeriousPuppet t1_j9bhw21 wrote

Replying to de_hell (#1,878,625)

I agree. There are so many stars and planets that there has to be at least a few other planets with life. Perhaps many thousands or millions. But at least a few. We can't be the only one in the entire universe.

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badmamerjammer t1_j9bimgt wrote

the scale in this image and description is melting my brain

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dougfunnybitch t1_j9bj99n wrote

This would be way more interesting if you just left it as “Tadpole Galaxy”

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LordSalem t1_j9bkr11 wrote

Imagine you're on a rock in a solar system for thousands of years, you develop a civilization and just as you're starting to explore a night sky you realize another galaxy will collide with the one you're in. Years and years of preparation and you've calculated your planet will be ok, but your entire solar system will change trajectory away from the galactic center. Any hope you had of finding life in a nearby solar system is gone. Your civilization will never be trapped, alone, on this one rock for eternity.

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TOGHeinz t1_j9bsvb7 wrote

Replying to Barrrrrrnd (#1,877,065)

These kind of pictures always blow my mind. The main subject is absolutely fascinating. But just taking a gander beyond and seeing the sheer number of galaxies, realizing the distances and stars in each, understanding it’s only a tiny fraction of the sky and this is all around us in every direction.. it’s staggering.

Happy cake day.

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danielravennest t1_j9bwdmq wrote

Replying to SeriousPuppet (#1,887,755)

It is definitely from Hubble. It has two sets of detectors, UV to near Infrared, and near IR to mid IR. It has a total of 77 filters, including "no filter" option. Scientific cameras use filters to produce color images because you get 3 times as many pixels as common phone cameras, which have separate pixels for RGB colors.

So depending on filter choice for an image, it may not look like this if you saw it with your eyes directly. But it is still a real image produced by a camera and a telescope.

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Nethyishere t1_j9d5lco wrote

Replying to Super_Automatic (#1,887,522)

Until your race needs to leave and move on to new worlds, and you realize that for your race to continue to new worlds you'll have to chase your galaxy down.

Still sounds badass but no doubt stressful to appreciate the scope of.

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