NGC 1232

NGC 1232: A collision between galaxies about 60 million light years from Earth.

A massive multimillion-degree cloud of gas has been revealed in X-ray data from Chandra (purple) that have been combined with optical data from the Very Large Telescope (blue and white) in this new composite image. The hot gas cloud is likely caused by a collision between a dwarf galaxy and a much larger galaxy called NGC 1232. If confirmed, this discovery would mark the first time such a collision has been detected only in X-rays, and could have implications for understanding how galaxies grow through similar collisions.

Scale: Image is 6.8 arcmin across (About 120,000 light years).

Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Huntingdon Inst. for X-ray Astronomy/G.Garmire, Optical: ESO/VLT

Note: For more information, see NGC 1232: Dwarf Galaxy Caught Ramming Into a Large Spiral

Fifteen Years of the Very Large Telescope

This selection of images — one per year in the life of the VLT — gives a taste of its huge scope and scientific productivity since first light in May 1998. The images are as follows: 1998: NGC 1232 (eso9845), 1999: NGC 3603 (eso9946), 2000: Messier 104, the Sombrero Galaxy (eso0007), 2001: Messier 16 in the infrared (eso0142), 2002: the Horsehead Nebula (eso0202), 2003: NGC 613 (eso0338), 2004: first candidate exoplanet image (eso0428), 2005: NGC 1097 center (eso0534), 2006: NGC 1313 (eso0643), 2007: ESO 593-IG 008 (eso0755), 2008: center of the Milky Way (eso0846), 2009: the Jewel Box cluster (eso0940), 2010: Messier 17 in the infrared (potw1044a), 2011: the Eyes galaxies (eso1131), 2012: the Carina Nebula in the infrared (eso1208) and 2013: IC 2944 (eso1322).

Image credits: ESO/P.D. Barthel/M. McCaughrean/M. Andersen/S. Gillessen et al./Y. Beletsky/R. Chini/T. Preibisch

Note: For more information, see ESO's Very Large Telescope Celebrates 15 Years of Success.

NGC 1232

NGC 1232 is a spiral galaxy some 65 million light-years away in the constellation of Eridanus (the River). The galaxy is classified as an intermediate spiral galaxy — somewhere between a barred and an unbarred spiral galaxy. An image of this galaxy and its small companion galaxy NGC 1232A in visible light was one of the first produced by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). HAWK-I has now returned to NGC 1232 to show a different view of it at near-infrared wavelengths.

HAWK-I is one of the most powerful infrared imagers in the world, and this is one of the sharpest and most detailed pictures of this galaxy ever taken from Earth. The filters used were Y (shown in blue), J (in green), H (in muddy brown), and K (in red). The field of view of the image is about 6.4 arcminutes.

Photo credit: ESO/P. Grosbøl

Note: For more information and other photos, see Spiral Galaxies Stripped Bare.