APOD 1.5

The astronomy picture of the day that I chose to read about was Arp 188 and the Tadpole's Tidal Tail (9/26/10). This picture shows the Tadpole Galaxy. This galaxy does indeed look like a tadpole because of the tail of stars, dust, and gas that forms it. It is thought that the tail was formed from a close encounter with another intruder galaxy. When the intruder galaxy crossed in front of the Tadpole galaxy, their gravitational forces drew them together and the stars, dust, and gas was drawn out from the intruder galaxy as it was slung around behind the Tadpole Galaxy. Its tail of stars is about 280 thousand light years long! Eventually though, they say it will lose its tail as it gets older (just like a frog) because the stars clusters will become small satellites to the galaxy.

This is interesting because it showed how galaxies can interact with each other and what could happen from that interaction. I was not aware that galaxies could even move like that. What resulted from these two galaxies was merely a drawing out of some star clusters. In other examples that they have shown, the larger galaxy could have absorb the smaller one into itself over a period of time. I also liked the fact at how appropriately the galaxy was named because it did indeed look like a tadpole and it will become like a frog when it loses its tail.