This beautiful image shows two galaxies, IC 2163 and NGC 2207, as they undergo a grazing collision 114 million light-years away. The image is composite, constructed from Hubble (blue), Spitzer (green), and ALMA (red) data. In a recent study, Debra Elmegreen (Vassar College) and collaborators used this ALMA data to trace the individual molecular clouds in the two interacting galaxies, identifying a total of over 200 clouds that each contain a mass of over a million solar masses. These clouds represent roughly half the molecular gas in the two galaxies total. Elmegreen and collaborators track the properties of these clouds and their relation to star-forming regions observed with Hubble. For more information about their observations, check out the paper linked below.
Citation
Debra Meloy Elmegreen et al 2017 ApJ 841 43. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aa6ba5
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