| Description | This looks like a lovely, face-on spiral galaxy that is clipped a bit flat along the full length of the right side, and oddly expanded on the left. One can imagine another galaxy making a close approach to Arp 28 from the upper right, stripping off stars (though you can still see something close to Arp 28's original spiral shape in the faint dust cloud that remains). This hypothetical galaxy, as it continues past, then seems to have swung to the lower left (from our perspective) pulling open the main spiral arm of Arp 28, and drawing off more stars from the periphery. Arp categorizes this as having a single, heavy arm, though one could easily argue it has two, both on the lower left of this image. Either way, it's a lovely, intriguing target. |
