The Dark Energy Camera, an instrument that records wide-field photographs installed on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, took a magnificent photo of the galaxy duo NGC 1512 and NGC 1510. Galaxies are merging, and the camera has revealed fascinating insights about the process.

The Dark Energy Camera is part of the Dark Energy Survey (DES), a NOIRLab program that aims to study dark energy by observing and mapping hundreds of millions of galaxies over a six-year period (from 2013 to 2019). By combing through this data, scientists can also find the individual or interacting objects.

In the case of the large barred spiral galaxy NGC 1512, located about 60 million light-years away, the interaction is with the lenticular dwarf galaxy NGC 1510. The process has been going on for 400 million years and has triggered waves of formation of stars in both galaxies.

Thanks to the camera’s wide field of view and resolution, entangled galaxies appear filled with blue stars in their surroundings. The bluish color of these regions indicates that they are young, massive stars. On the other hand, stars that appear very large actually belong to the Milky Way, and are much closer together.

If we take a closer look at the image, we’ll also find other galaxies even further away in the background — so far away that they appear to be smaller than the Milky Way’s foreground stars.

Image Credit: NOIRLab

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