News

Hubble Spots Galaxy That Looks Like Atomic Nucleus

By R. Siva Kumar | Update Date: Dec 15, 2015 09:30 AM EST

One galaxy looks like an atomic nucleus, and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has managed to identify its image, according to a news release.

The NGC 7252 spiral galaxy looks externally like an atomic nucleus that is surrounded by loops of orbiting electrons according to scienceworldreport.

This is also called the "Atoms for Peace" galaxy, although its past was always turbulent. It looks strange and chaotic due to a shattering collision that happened between two galaxies billions of years ago.

NGC 7252 is about 300 million light-years away and has been discovered in the constellation Aquarius. The heart of NGC 7252 has more than 500 star clusters.

NGC 7252's "loop-like" outer structures is made up mostly of dust and stars, which were pushed outwards due to the collision. Still, the orbiting electrons in the atom have given the galaxy its name.

The image shows the inner parts of the galazy, which has a pinwheel-shaped disk rotating in a direction that is opposite to remaining part of the galaxy. Hence, the disk is more like a spiral galaxy, the Milky Way, which is just 10,000 light-years across, and a tenth of the size of the Milky Way.

The whirling image is like a residue from the huge collision of billions of years ago.

NGC 7252 will probably vanish after a few more billion years, even as it finishes its merging process by then.

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