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PIA18903: Galactic Gathering Gives Impressive Light Display
This composite image of NGC 2207 and IC 2163 contains Chandra data in pink, optical-light data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in red, green, and blue (appearing as blue, white, orange, and brown), and infrared data from Spitzer Space Telescope in red.
 Instrument:  Chandra X-ray Observatory 
Hubble Space Telescope 
Spitzer Space Telescope 
 Product Size:  3600 x 1742 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  Chandra X-ray Observatory 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA18903.tif (18.82 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA18903.jpg (698.6 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

At this time of year, holiday parties often include festive lights. When galaxies get together, they also may be surrounded by a spectacular light show. That's the case with NGC 2207 and IC 2163, which are located about 130 million light-years from Earth, in the constellation of Canis Major.

This pair of spiral galaxies has been caught in a grazing encounter. NGC 2207 and IC 2163 have hosted three supernova explosions in the past 15 years and have produced one of the most bountiful collections of super-bright X-ray lights known. These special objects -- known as "ultraluminous X-ray sources" (ULXs) -- have been found using data from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

This composite image of NGC 2207 and IC 2163 contains Chandra data in pink, optical-light data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope visible-light data in blue, white, orange and brown, and infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in red.

More information about the image is online at http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2014/ngc2207.

Image Credit:
NASA/CXC/SAO/STScI/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:
2014-12-11