NRAO: National Radio Astronomy Observatory

About this Image

These two colliding galaxies, NGC 4038 (top) and NGC 4039 (bottom) are collectively known as "The Antennae". The figure on the left shows the neutral hydrogen gas (HI) in blue, mapped with the NRAO Very Large Array, superimposed on an optical image from the CTIO 0.9m in green and white. This composite image shows the extent of the tidal tails of material that were pulled out of the two galaxies as they gravitationally interact with each other. The optical image on the right, made with the Hubble Space Telescope, shows the heart of these galaxies and the young clusters of stars created in the collision (courtesy STScI/NASA).

Investigator(s):  VLA: J.E.Hibbard, J.M. van der Hulst, J.E. Barnes & R.M. Rich. HST: B. Whitmore & F. Schweizer

Alternate Resolutions

Help

This image is available in the following downloadable versions:

• 576 x 410 color JPEG
• 1050 x 747 color JPEG
• 2400 x 1707 color TIFF

If you would like to obtain a higher resolution version of this image, please contact Pat Smiley.

For More Information

• Read the Journal article
• Visit related website http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~jhibbard/n4038/n4038.html
• Up one level for more info on Peculiar galaxies
• For unfamiliar terms, visit the NRAO Radio Astronomy Glossary

Technical Data

Telescope	VLA and HST
Date of Observation	1996-06-03
Type of Observation	Spectral Line Observations
Wavelength	21 cm
Frequency	1420.4 MHz
Species	HI
Center of Image	RA: 12:01:52.48, Dec: -18:52:2.90 (J2000)
Field of View	0.3000 x 0.3000 degrees
Technical Caption	Optical image on the left obtained with the CTIO 0.9m telescope, and is a combination of CCD exposures taken in the Blue, Visible, and Red part of the spectrum. The VLA observations are a combination of C-array and D-array observations. HST image is a truecolor WFPC image from Whitmore & Schweizer.



Astronomical database entries for NGC4038
• Query NED for images of NGC4038
• Query SIMBAD for more NGC4038 data

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