NASA and European Space Agency there is posted a photo They admitted that the dwarf irregular galaxy, photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope, appears “unexciting” at first glance. However, there is more going on than meets the eye. A lot of research is being done on the “complex structure” of NGC 5238, located 14.5 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici, the agencies say. In fact, astronomers believe that the distribution of stars in NGC 5238 may have been distorted by the absorption of another galaxy.
They believe that based on the stellar population of NGC 5238 (which Hubble is adept at helping to describe), it may have had a “close encounter” with another galaxy a billion years ago. However, since there are no galaxies close enough to distort the stellar distribution in this way, NGC 5238 is more likely to merge with a smaller galaxy. In addition to hosting many stars, the galaxy is also home to globular clusters, which NASA describes as “shining, bright spots both within and around a galaxy full of more stars.”
Astronomers plan to dig deeper into the data to learn about NGC 5238’s past. If they find clusters of stars with different properties than most of the other stars in the galaxy, this is a clear indication that a merger has occurred. They will also try to determine whether there was a sudden “burst of star formation” after the galaxies merged.
NASA notes that the merger of a dwarf irregular galaxy with a smaller satellite galaxy is something that could have fueled the clustering of galaxies in our early universe. So the agency says Hubble’s data from NGC 5238 could help researchers test fundamental ideas about the evolution of the universe.
