An old accident?
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by
kroy
Absolutely stunning, this galaxy looks like it definitely looks like it has a story to tell!
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by
JeanTate
This spiral looks similar to the classic 'grand-design' spiral, M51. It too seems to have a small companion, near the end of the upper arm. M51-like galaxies are thought to get their prominent spiral arm structures from just these sorts of close encounters with smaller companions. However, the arms in this galaxy are rather more distorted than in M51; perhaps the merger was more violent? or the relative masses were more similar?
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