Hubble Space Telescope Captures the Galactic Angel Wing
NASA shared an image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, which shows a deep space object VV689, a system nicknamed the Angel Wing. It can be found in the night sky in the constellation Leo.
NASA shared an image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, which shows a deep space object VV689, a system nicknamed the Angel Wing. It can be found in the night sky in the constellation Leo.
The Angel Wing is, in fact, a pair of two distant merging galaxies, whose collision formed a giant structure that visually resembles a pair of wings. These massive space objects have been in the process of merging for billions of years.
The image of the Angel Wing comes from a set of Hubble observations that inspect the highlights of the citizen science project Galaxy Zoo. This crowdsourced program involves hundreds of thousands of volunteers from many countries who view images from robotic telescopes and help astronomers classify and locate galaxies.