New Cosmos Is Forming: Hubble Captures Collision of Several Galaxies, Creating a Torrent of New Stars (Photos)


(Clearwisdom.net) After more than three years of inactivity, the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured a series of breathtaking views of galaxies. NASA released some of the pictures in early June. One of the pictures showed a tumultuous collision between four galaxies, called IRAS 19297-0406, located 1 billion light-years from Earth. The galactic collision is creating a torrent of new stars. The large amount of dust generated by the collision is what produces the brilliant infrared glow.

This class of galaxies, known as ultra-luminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs), carries bizarre shapes and glows fiercely in the infrared spectrum, appearing 100 times brighter than our Milky Way. Astronomers believe that the extremely strong infrared emission is related to a firestorm of star birth triggered by the collisions. The emission from the newborn stars is absorbed by the surrounding dust, which gives off the high-intensity infrared emission.

At present, IRAS 19297-0406 is generating 200 new Sun-like stars every year -- about 100 times more stars than our Milky Way creates. The colliding galaxies are so close together that they will eventually fall into each other and form one massive galaxy.

Astronomers previously thought only pairs of galaxies were interacting in ULIRGs. But Hubble pictures show a surprising amount of complexity and structure that astronomer Kirk Borne of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and other collaborators interpret as collisions of multiple galaxies.

Using Hubble to conduct a three-year survey of 123 ULIRGs within 3 billion light-years of Earth, Borne found that 30% of them show strong visual evidence for multiple mergers, where astronomers previously thought only two galaxies were interacting.

"We are seeing the final stage of the hierarchical evolution of the universe, where small fragments coalesce to build ever bigger objects," says Borne. "We see matter ripped out of galaxies in the form of long tails of stars, and matter contracting in the form of multiple nuclei crowded together. In some we see a 'nest' of galaxies where they all coalesce."

These results provided a snapshot of what conditions were like in the early universe, when galaxy collisions were commonplace. Falun Dafa is now spreading throughout the human world, and heaven and earth must change accordingly. Especially in the present period of time, the universe that we are able to observe is undergoing an unprecedented, gigantic change. Discoveries of newborn galaxies appear one after another. These phenomena indicate that the new cosmos is now replacing the old one on an enormous scale. This may lead to the conclusion that our universe is now returning to a state of birth.

References:

http://www.vialattea.net/hubble/1999/9945.htm
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/2002/13/pr-photos.html
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/1999/45/pr.html


Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2002/6/24/32252.html

 Yearly Archive   Printer Version


We welcome your comments and suggestions, please email:
feedback@clearwisdom.net


Related Articles

Article Review
Revealing Broadcasts Are Truly Serving the People [6/28/2002]
Blacklist Re-emerges in Hong Kong as American is Detained at SAR Airport and Forcefully Deported [6/27/2002]
Congratulatory Letter from Minister of Canadian Heritage on 10th Anniversary of Falun Dafa's Introduction to the Public [5/19/2002]
China's Propaganda Minister, Politburo Member, Deputy Chief of "6-10" Office Served with U.S. Class-Action Lawsuit for Persecution of Falun Gong [5/18/2002]
1992-2002: The Introduction of Falun Dafa Leads to a Magnificent, Splendid Decade [5/17/2002]
China's Central "610 Office" Intensifies Demonizing Propaganda and Sets Stage for Slaughter [5/16/2002]
Official Orders Permit Use of the Death Sentence: Shenyang City Government Escalates Its Persecution of Dafa Practitioners [5/15/2002]
Celebrating Ten Years of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance [5/14/2002]
Falun Gong Is Great! [5/13/2002]
Falun Dafa's Tenth Anniversary Honored by Cities in the US and Canada [5/12/2002]
While Studying the Fa Well and Clarifying the Truth, Use Righteous Thoughts to Eliminate the Evil [5/8/2002]
Falun Gong Practitioner Sun Guilan from Baoji City, Shaanxi Province Tortured to Death for Attending a Cultivation Experience Sharing Meeting [5/7/2002]
Clarifying the Truth is Suffocating the Evil [5/6/2002]
Use Rationality in Dealing with Everything, Take Each Step Solidly and Steadily on the Path of Fa-Rectification [5/5/2002]
International Media Report that IOC Was Urged to Take Action Over Plans for Pre-Olympic Crackdown in China [5/4/2002]
The Abduction of "Most Outstanding Policeman" Lu Zhiyong Causes Strong Repercussions Among the People in Sichuan Province [4/27/2002]
Practitioners Get Illegally Extorted "Deposits" Back in a Dignified and Upright Manner [4/26/2002]
Truth-Clarifying Videos Successfully Broadcast in Heilongjiang Province on April 20th and 21st [4/25/2002]
Los Angeles Practitioners Continuously Send Forth Righteous Thoughts in Front of the Chinese Consulate, Clarifying the Truth to Chinese Scholars [4/24/2002]
Families of Changchun Dafa Practitioners Refuse To Cooperate With a "Focal Target Group Survey" [4/23/2002]
More Articles...