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Arp 270: Two merging galaxies about 90
million light years from Earth. Caption: Chandra's image of Arp 270 shows two galaxies in the early stage of a merger. The hot spots (blue) are thought to be due to the formation of hundreds of thousands of new stars as the two gaseous disks rotate through each other. These bursts of star formation create many massive stars that generate intense winds of hot gas. Eventually, these massive stars explode as supernovas. This violent activity produces the hot gas clouds that surround the galaxy disks (red). In the image, red represents low, green intermediate, and blue high-energy (temperature) X-rays. Scale: Image is 4 arcmin on a side. Chandra X-ray Observatory ACIS Image
CXC operated for
NASA by the Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory
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