Tour of Stephan's Quintet
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This beautiful image gives a new look at Stephan's Quintet, a compact group of galaxies discovered about 130 years ago and located about 280 million light years from Earth. A view in optical light from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea clearly shows four individual galaxies. A fifth, harder-to-see galaxy is plunging its way through the system at almost two million miles per hour. This extreme motion generates a shock wave that heats the gas between the galaxies. This in turn causes the gas to glow strongly in X-rays, and that's detected by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Stephan's Quintet provides a rare opportunity for astronomers to observe a group of galaxies in a crucial stage of its evolution.
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(Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/E. O'Sullivan; Optical: CFHT/Coelum)

Images of Stephan's Quintet
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• Low Res (1 MB)

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This sequence begins with the view in optical light of Stephan's Quinet as seen by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea. The optical image clearly shows four of the galaxies in the group. A fifth, harder-to-see galaxy is plunging its way through the system at almost two million miles an hour. This extreme motion generates a shock wave that heats the gas between the galaxies. This, in turn, causes the gas to glow brightly in X-rays (light blue) that is detected by Chandra.
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(Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/E. O'Sullivan; Optical: CFHT/Coelum)