Starship Asterisk*

If I think the image is the one you are talking about.
That is caused by lensing, deformed image either caused by gravity or by our intruments.

harry,
the spiral galaxy I am refering to is about two thirds of the way down the expanded image where there appears to be a bright streak coming from the center. It is far less significant that the tadpole 'tail' but it is there. Be sure to the check the expanded image in the link I posted rather than the APOD site image.

Cheers Bilderback, I do realise that gravity causes objects to be attracted, I had never thought that all these objects had been left to their own devices for such a long time in space that their motion had become completely dominated by gravity, hence the collisions.

Hi Harry, you mentioned no bigbang and no expansion, what's your view on Doppler's Red shift and the cosmic microwave background map, beautifully portayed by Chandra?

I don't particularly think the universe needs a beginning or end for anyone to feel satisfied, nevertheless, the fact there may have been a beginning does seems to coincide with the fact all things we know of have a life expectancy of some sort, be it a week for a butterfly, 80 years for a human or ??? billion years for a universe.

Reshad

[quote="Reshad"]Seeing the lovely Tadpole galaxy collision remanents, a question occured to me as to why galaxies collide if after the bigbang everything was flung perpendicularly from a single point at tremendous velocities. Furthermore, the visible universe is known to be continuously expanding and even accelerating. So how do these systems manage to come into contact; moreover, with high angle of incidence trajectories, as seen in the case of many other galaxy collisions?

Reshad[/quote]

The interactions of galaxies gravitational fields can easily be explained by fluid motion models. On average their distance is getting greater, think of it as a smoke ring with eddies and turbulent continuing to mix as the ring gets larger. I know, a smoke ring uses the resistance of air pressure to create the effect; replace air pressure with gravity and rotational forces and you'll have it.

Smile

The tadpole image is the two gallaxies coming together.

The tail is the remaining galaxy heading towards the main body

The gravitational influence of one galaxy on the other has been sufficiently strong so as to significantly change the direction of forward motion and yet the Tadpole has retained its basic spiral shape with only a small portion drawn out to form the 'tail'. It is difficult to figure out the shape of the other galaxy that was invloved in the close encounter. A fascinating picture.

hello

The universe is not expanding
and there is no Big Bang

The galaxies collide as part of the recyclic process which never ends.

Go to the link

on The Big Bang

Seeing the lovely Tadpole galaxy collision remanents, a question occured to me as to why galaxies collide if after the bigbang everything was flung perpendicularly from a single point at tremendous velocities. Furthermore, the visible universe is known to be continuously expanding and even accelerating. So how do these systems manage to come into contact; moreover, with high angle of incidence trajectories, as seen in the case of many other galaxy collisions?

Reshad

Hello
I'm trying to see the second galaxy that you are talking about.

Sorry no can do.

Please explain

In this expanded view of todays APOD

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0601/tadpole_hst_big.jpg

underneath the tadpole galaxy itself there is another spiral galaxy which (I assume) is in the background - sporting a similar 'tail'

is this a result of the same process? thoughts?