A new image shows two contrasting galaxies that are close in proximity but have very different "personalities."
Researchers used the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile to capture the stunning image, a European Southern Observatory news release reported.
The image captures both the galaxy NGC 1316 and its smaller neighbor NGC 1317. The smaller object is a spiral galaxy that has led an "uneventful life"; NGC 1316 on the other hand has "engulfed" a number of other galaxies.
Clues in NGC 1316 's structure are believed to reveal its violent past; unusual "dust lanes" and small, condensed, star clusters suggest it swallowed a dust-rick spiral galaxy about three billion years ago.
Researchers have also observed tidal tails in the cannibal galaxy, which are "wisps and shells of stars that have been torn from their original locations and flung into intergalactic space," the news release reported. This phenomenon is believed to be created by gravitational effects on stars that occur when galaxies get too close.
These observations suggest NGC 1316 has a violent past that still continues to this day.
NGC 1316 is located about 60 million light-years in the constellation Fornax (The Furnace). The galaxy is the brightest source of "radio emission in the constellation," the news release reported. It is also the fourth brightest source of radio emission in the entire sky. The emission is created when material falls into the black hole at the center of the galaxy.
The new image was created by combining a number of ESO photographs.
"As a bonus the new picture also provides a window into the distant Universe far beyond the two bright galaxies in the foreground. Most of the faint fuzzy spots in the picture are much more distant galaxies - and there is a particularly dense concentration just to the left of NGC 1316," the news release reported.
