                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2025 December 4

                           Galaxies in the Furnace
          Image Credit & Copyright: Simone Curzi and the ShaRA Team

   Explanation: An example of violence on a cosmic scale, enormous
   elliptical galaxy NGC 1316 lies about 75 million light-years away
   toward Fornax, the southern constellation of the Furnace. Investigating
   the startling sight, astronomers suspect the giant galaxy of colliding
   with smaller neighbor NGC 1317 seen just right of the large galaxy's
   center, producing far flung star streams in loops and shells. Light
   from their close encounter would have reached Earth some 100 million
   years ago. In the sharp telescopic image, the central regions of NGC
   1316 and NGC 1317 appear separated by over 100,000 light-years. Complex
   dust lanes visible within also indicate that NGC 1316 is itself the
   result of a merger of galaxies in the distant past. Found on the
   outskirts of the Fornax galaxy cluster, NGC 1316 is known as Fornax A.
   One of the visually brightest of the Fornax cluster galaxies it is one
   of the strongest and largest celestial radio sources with radio
   emission extending well beyond this one degree wide field-of-view.

                     Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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