Image of Ring Galaxy Honors Hubble’s Launch

Image of ring galaxy honors Hubble’s launch

Washington Post

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

A relatively short time ago — 100 million years in star time — a galaxy 300 million light-years from Earth collided with another galaxy, spewing gas deep into space until gravity pulled the clouds together to form a ring of hot, new blue stars.

NASA’s Space Telescope Science Institute released an image of ring galaxy AM 0644-741, compiled in January from cameras aboard the Hubble Space Telescope.

Dubbed “Lure of the Rings,” the image commemorates the 14th anniversary of Hubble’s deployment.

The nucleus of the target galaxy, composed of mature, 10 billion- year-old stars like the sun, remained undisturbed, like an egg yolk, but the gas was hurled outward like ripples on a pond, until gravity compressed it. The invading galaxy does not appear in the image, said the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.