Astronomy Picture Of The Day: NGC 1961: A Ravaged Spiral Beauty

 

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Black Hole

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NGC 1961: A Ravaged Spiral BeautyThe Hubble Space Telescope has captured one of the most dramatic and chaotic spiral galaxies ever seen: NGC 1961.This majestic, yet violently distorted spiral spans nearly 200,000 light-years, larger than the Milky Way, and glows with the fierce light of intense star formation. Its arms are torn, twisted, and flung outward in luminous arcs, as if the galaxy has been gripped by an invisible cosmic hand and wrenched apart.What caused this spectacular destruction?Astronomers believe NGC 1961 recently plowed through a dense cloud of intergalactic gas or suffered a close gravitational encounter with a companion galaxy (now possibly hidden or destroyed). The impact triggered a firestorm of starbirth: brilliant blue clusters of newborn massive stars blaze along the shredded arms, while dark ribbons of dust trace the shockwaves of the catastrophe.Despite its chaotic appearance, NGC 1961 remains surprisingly intact at its core, where a bright, active nucleus hints at a supermassive black hole quietly feeding amid the turmoil.This is not a dying galaxy, but a galaxy in furious rebirth, violently reshaping itself in a blaze of creation. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team