NGC 4676, or the Mice Galaxies, are two

spiral galaxies Spiral galaxies form a class of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work ''The Realm of the Nebulae''constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the e ...

Coma Berenices Coma Berenices is an ancient asterism in the northern sky, which has been defined as one of the 88 modern constellations. It is in the direction of the fourth galactic quadrant, between Leo and Boötes, and it is visible in both hemisphere ...

. About 290 million

light-year A light-year, alternatively spelled light year, is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers (), or 5.88 trillion miles ().One trillion here is taken to be 1012 ...

s distant, they have begun the process of colliding and merging. Their name refers to the long tails produced by

tidal action The tidal force is a gravitational effect that stretches a body along the line towards the center of mass of another body due to a gradient (difference in strength) in gravitational field from the other body; it is responsible for diverse phenomen ...

—the relative difference between gravitational pulls on the near and far parts of each galaxy—known here as a

galactic tide A galactic tide is a tidal force experienced by objects subject to the gravitational field of a galaxy such as the Milky Way. Particular areas of interest concerning galactic tides include galactic collisions, the disruption of dwarf or satellit ...

. It is a possibility that both galaxies, which are members of the

Coma Cluster The Coma Cluster (Abell 1656) is a large galaxy cluster, cluster of galaxies that contains over 1,000 identified galaxies. Along with the Leo Cluster (Abell 1367), it is one of the two major clusters comprising the Coma Supercluster. It is loc ...

, have experienced collision, and will continue colliding until they coalesce. The colors of the galaxies are peculiar. In NGC 4676A a core with some dark markings is surrounded by a bluish white remnant of spiral arms. The tail is unusual, starting out blue and terminating in a more yellowish color, despite the fact that the beginning of each arm in virtually every spiral galaxy starts yellow and terminates in a bluish color. NGC 4676B has a yellowish core and two arcs; arm remnants underneath are bluish as well. The galaxies were photographed in 2002 by the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...

. In the background of the Mice Galaxies, there are at least 3,300 galaxies, at distances up to 13 billion light-years.

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The Mice Galaxies
Lenticular galaxies Peculiar galaxies Interacting galaxies Irregular galaxies Barred lenticular galaxies Coma Cluster Coma Berenices NGC objects IC objects 07938 43062 242 {{lenticular-galaxy-stub

See also

References

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