Hubble Guitar Interacting Galaxies Arp 105
NASA / ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope captures a guitar-like elliptical galaxy NGC 3561B (upper left) and spiral galaxy NGC 3561A (lower right) in the process of interacting, called Arp 105. This interaction is driven by gravity, characterized by a long, drawn out tidal tail of stars and gas more than 362,000 light-years long.


Hubble Guitar Interacting Galaxies Arp 105
The massive tail extends far beyond the image you see here, and was pulled from the two galaxies by their gravitational interactions, complete with embedded star clusters as well as dwarf galaxies. Its peculiar arrangement of galaxies and tail is what gives this grouping its nickname: The Guitar. If you’re wondering what the bright blue area of star formation on the base of the guitar is called, astronomers refer to it as Ambartsumian’s Knot, or a tidal dwarf galaxy that develops from the debris in tidal arms of interacting galaxies.

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Arp 105 is one of the brightest objects in the crowded galaxy cluster Abell 1185 in the constellation Ursa Major. Abell 1185, located around 400 million light-years away, is a chaotic cluster of at least 82 galaxies, many of which are interacting, as well as a number of wandering globular clusters that are not gravitationally attached to any particular galaxy,” said the NASA Hubble Mission Team.