Galaxy tail
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by
Magnarune
Based on the image it is hard to tell if the galaxy is interacting with another?
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KWillett
scientist, admin, translator
Yes, although you're right that we can't see distinct nuclei from two galaxies. This looks like a very good example of "tidal debris", which is one of the questions we ask in the tree. The galaxy likely either had a merger at least several hundred million years ago (and the nuclei are now blended into one), or another galaxy passed nearby without merging (a "flyby") and stripped off the tail that we see on the right.
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JeanTate
in response to KWillett's comment.
Is it also possible that the other nucleus is faint and 'behind' the bulge of the bigger, foreground galaxy?
Galaxy overlaps are certainly not uncommon, especially in the hearts of rich clusters. And I seem to remember reading a paper reporting an investigation into anomalously high 'velocity dispersion' in some ellipticals ... they found that the ones they investigated were due to overlaps, two ellipticals (in the same cluster) on the same line of sight. In SDSS-like images, these looked exactly boring ellipticals, but when imaged with greater resolution (and analyzed with some nifty software) the 'background' elliptical could be seen (sorta).
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