| Description | This is a very mysterious duo of galaxies. The smaller, to the left, appears like a ribbon because it has been largely stripped of its envelope of stars. The larger, right, is a weirdly distorted, barred spiral, in 3/4 view. To be clear, the bright object in the center is actually a star, not the galactic nucleus. The actual nucleus is just above it, and therefore asymmetrically located within the spiral. The top arm has been pulled left. The bottom half of the spiral is partially stripped and what remains is heavily knotted: this is less obvious in my capture, but very clear in Arp's. I see that some sources explain the mystery by the smaller galaxy having actually passed through the larger. This is certainly consistent with what i can see, particularly in Arp's capture, which I "printed" as a positive image because I felt it showed the chaos better. |
