Galactic Face-off

Far, far away in the constellation Phoenix, two interacting galaxies meet in an epic battle spanning a hundred thousand light-years, captured here with the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. Collectively known as NGC 454, the upper galaxy is a red elliptical galaxy called NGC 454 E, while below it is NGC 454 W, a blue, gas-rich irregular galaxy. Despite being in the early stages of their interaction, both galaxies already show severe distortion. Remnants of both galaxies have been stretched far beyond their main bodies, from the disarray of both galaxies’ stellar populations at the top right of this image to the globular clusters forming at NGC 454 W’s bottom-left side. Dust lanes from the dynamic interaction cross NGC 454 E, and NGC 454 W barely looks like the disk galaxy it was thought to be. The early merger is further evidenced by the veil of a low surface brightness halo surrounding the galaxies as well as the myriad of young stars that populate the system. Now gravitationally bound together, the fight of NGC 454 will end when the two galaxies eventually combine into one.

This interacting pair was captured by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) made by the US Department of Energy as part of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Legacy Imaging Surveys.