Cosmic Owl

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Cosmic Owl
Observation data
Constellation Sextans [1]
Right ascension 10h 00m 14.189s [2]
Declination +02° 13′ 11.72″ [2]
Redshift 1.14 [2]
Characteristics
Type
Mass 3.20×1011 [3]   M☉
Size
  • Length: 5.2×104 ly (4.9×1017 km; 3.1×1017 mi)
  • Width: 2.6×104 ly (2.5×1017 km; 1.5×1017 mi)
Other designations
  • [ALMA] 2016.1.01040.S

The Cosmic Owl, located at redshift z=1.14, 8.8 billion light-years away, is a pair of galaxies of two nearly identical ring galaxies undergoing collision and merger, The two rings form the eyes of the owl, while the merger zone forms the beak, giving this celestial object the appearance of an owl's face. This collision represents an important observational target for galaxy research, as several interactions are occurring in the system, to test theories of galaxy evolution. The merging galaxies have collisional starbust, AGN jet impingment and starburst, ring galaxies themselves, and the galaxy collision itself. [4] [3] [5]

Contents

References

  1. ↑ David Moews (2008). "Finding the constellation which contains given sky coordinates". djm.cc.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Mingyu Li, Bjorn H. C. Emonts, Zheng Cai, Takumi S. Tanaka, Wilfried Mercier, Yunjing Wu, Fujiang Yu, Fengwu Sun, Fuyan Bian, Emanuele Daddi, Xiaohui Fan, Xiaojing Lin, Jianwei Lyu, Jeyhan S. Kartaltepe, Francesco Valentino (11 June 2025). "The Cosmic Owl: Twin Active Collisional Ring Galaxies with Starburst Merging Front at z=1.14". arXiv: 2506.10058 [astro-ph.GA].{{cite arXiv}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. 1 2 Tomasz Nowakowski (19 June 2025). "The Cosmic Owl: Astronomers discover a peculiar galaxy merger". Phys.org.
  4. ↑ Lydia Amazouz (20 June 2025). "Astronomers Capture the 'Cosmic Owl' – A Rare Galaxy Collision That Looks Like an Owl's Face!". Daily Galaxy.
  5. ↑ Muhammad Tuhin (19 June 2025). "Astronomers Discover "Cosmic Owl" Galaxy Merger with Twin Rings and Bright Eyes". Science News Today.

Further reading

See also

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