| The hydroden distribution and velocity field
of the
merging galaxy pair NGC 4038/9, also known as `The Antennae'. The radio
data were taken with CSIRO's Australia Telescope Compact Array; the small inset
shows the HST image of the two merging galaxy disks to scale. The tidal
tails - shaped like the antennae of an insect - were produced by gravitational
interactions between the two gas-rich spiral galaxies, NGC 4038 and NGC 4039,
which lost a large fraction of their hydrogen disks in the process. The small
companion seen at the bottom right of both images is the edge-on dwarf galaxy
ESO 572-G045.
|
