Just in time for Halloween, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released a rather haunting image of seemingly otherworldly creatures beaming down at us. But nope, this isn't like the stories of H.P Lovecraft. The image might be spectral, but it is far from the eldritch horror we imagine.
The Ghoulish Entity
The image captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope showed a very distinct pair of eyes glaring at the unknowing discoverer. Around the eyes are bluish specks of that formed the 'face' and clumps formed around what seemed like its nose and its mouth.
Astronomers describe this phenomenon as a head-on collision of two galaxies. Each distinct eye are the cores of galaxies, one of which slammed into the other. The impact of the collision produced the outline of the face, which is made by a ring of blue stars. New stars emerged during the collision and outlined the nose and mouth.
This system is recorded at the Catalogue of Southern Peculiar Galaxies as Arp-Madore 2026-424.
Unusual Phenomenon
Astronomers at NASA often explain that galaxy collisions are fairly common. However, in the case of the AM 2026-424 the galaxies collided violently, smashing head-on with each other. This encounter provided a ring structure that will last for more or less 100 million years, a relatively shorter amount of time.
The crash resulted in the galaxies being pulled and stretched on an outward direction, and because of this stretch, star formation turned to shape the nose and face of the intergalactic ghoul.
The phenomenon baffled scientists because ring galaxies are rare. Within our star system, there are at least a hundred or more ring galaxies. Usually, ring galaxies are produced when colliding galaxies collide at a certain angle. With the case of the twin galaxies colliding at AM 2026-424, the side-by-side position made it seem like both galaxies have the same size leading astronomers to believe that these twin galaxies colliding have equal proportions instead of the usual phenomenon where a larger galaxy would just gobble up the smaller ones.
Arp-Madore Catalogue of Southern Peculiar Galaxies
The otherworldly ghoulish face produced by this collision is not the first weird image found by astronomers in our universe. As a matter of fact, there are so many that American astronomer Halton Arp published his collection of 338 unusual-looking galaxies in 1966, and by 1987, he published a list of more strange-looking galaxies as observed in the Southern skies through a collaboration with fellow astronomer Barry Madore. This collection is now known as the Catalogue of Southern Peculiar Galaxies. It has helped astronomers in taking note of every phenomenon that occurs in the universe like the AM 2026-424.
NASA was also able to observe this peculiar system through its Hubble Space Telescope as a part of its snapshot program. According to their website, this project "takes advantage of occasional gaps in the telescope's observing schedule to squeeze in additional pictures." This image of the AM 2026-424 was taken on June 19.