ESO 415-19 and NGC 1858: Hubble Telescope takes stunningly detailed photos

The Hubble Space Telescope has taken new images that are definitely worth your attention. The first image shows the galaxy ESO 415-19, and the second shows NGC 1858, which is a scattered cluster of stars.

ESO 415-19 is one of the most unusual galaxies in the Halton Arp Atlas of peculiar galaxies, which includes 338 galaxies with unique individual features, which make them do not fit the usual classifications.

ESO 415-19 is about 450 million light-years away, and it looks like a fairly ordinary spiral galaxy. However, both of its 'arms' continue with unusually long streams of stars. Scientists believe that these streams were once long ago formed by the tidal forces of the galaxy. In the distant past, ESO 415-19 likely collided with or ruptured smaller galaxies, and the stars captured by its gravity over billions of years stretched into the long streams that make the galaxy look so unusual.

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field image in the region of the constellation Furnace (Fornax), which includes ESO 415-19, shows more than 10,000 galaxies of various ages, sizes, shapes and colors. But none of them looks like ESO 415-19.

Another interesting Hubble image shows the diffuse star cluster NGC 1858, 160,000 light-years from Earth in a dwarf galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud.

The gravitational pull of the stars in this cluster is very weak, and therefore the cluster has an irregular shape. This section is an emission nebula, which consists of a cloud of interstellar gas that forms a blue haze, which can be seen in the central part of the image. This gas is ionized by the ultraviolet radiation of nearby stars.

The presence of a large gas cloud shows that star formation in this part of space is either still underway or has recently ended. Most of the stars that can be seen in the foreground of the image are about 10 million years old.