Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2020 March 4

                The Slow Dance of Galaxies NGC 5394 and 5395
   Image Credit: Gemini, NSF, OIR Lab, AURA; Text: Ryan Tanner (NASA/USRA)

   Explanation: If you like slow dances, then this may be one for you. A
   single turn in this dance takes several hundred million years. Two
   galaxies, NGC 5394 and NGC 5395, slowly whirl about each other in a
   gravitational interaction that sets off a flourish of sparks in the
   form of new stars. The featured image, taken with the Gemini North
   8-meter telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii, USA, combines four different
   colors. Emission from hydrogen gas, colored red, marks stellar
   nurseries where new stars drive the evolution of the galaxies. Also
   visible are dark dust lanes that mark gas that will eventually become
   stellar nurseries. If you look carefully you will see many more
   galaxies in the background, some involved in their own slow cosmic
   dances.

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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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