Credit: NASA, ESA, SAO, CXC, JPL-Caltech, and STScI; Acknowledgment: J. DePasquale (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), and B. Whitmore (STScI)

The Antennae galaxies, located about 62 million light-years from Earth, are shown in this composite image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), the Hubble Space Telescope (gold and brown), and the Spitzer Space Telescope (red). The Antennae galaxies take their name from the long antenna-like "arms," seen in wide-angle views of the system. The X-ray image from Chandra shows huge clouds of hot, interstellar gas that have been injected with rich deposits of elements from supernova explosions. The Spitzer data show infrared light from warm dust clouds that have been heated by newborn stars, with the brightest clouds lying in the overlapping region between the two galaxies. The Hubble data reveal old stars and star-forming regions in gold and white, while filaments of dust appear in brown. Many of the fainter objects in the optical image are clusters containing thousands of stars.

Provider: Space Telescope Science Institute

Image Source: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2010/news-2010-25

Curator: STScI, Baltimore, MD, USA

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