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Stephan's Quintet
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== Emissions == === X-rays === [[Image:Stephan's Quintet X-ray + Optical.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Stephan's Quintet. The blue arc across the top center is a shock caused by colliding intergalactic gas. Image Credits: X-ray (blue): NASA/CXC/CfA/E. O'Sullivan Optical (brown): Canada-France-Hawaii-Telescope/Coelum]] As [[NGC 7318|NGC 7318B]] collides with gas in the group, a huge shock wave bigger than the Milky Way spreads throughout the medium between the galaxies, heating some of the gas to temperatures of millions of degrees where they emit X-rays detectable with the [[NASA]] [[Chandra X-ray Observatory]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2003/stephan/|title=Chandra :: Photo Album :: Stephan's Quintet :: 08 May 03|website=chandra.harvard.edu|access-date=2019-12-24}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.space.com/2125-shock-galaxies-caught-colliding.html|title=What a Shock! Galaxies Caught Colliding|last=Than 2006-03-07T11:18:00Z|first=Ker|website=Space.com|date=7 March 2006 |language=en|access-date=2019-12-24}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://phys.org/news/2006-03-gigantic-cosmic-cataclysm-stephan-quintet.html|title=Gigantic cosmic cataclysm in Stephan's Quintet of galaxies|website=phys.org|language=en-us|access-date=2019-12-24}}</ref> ===Molecular hydrogen emission=== The [[NASA]] [[Spitzer Space Telescope]], which detects infrared radiation, discovered a very powerful molecular hydrogen signal from the shock wave between the galaxies. This emission is one of the most turbulent formations of molecular hydrogen ever seen, and the strongest emission originates near the center of the green area in the visible light picture discussed earlier. This phenomenon was discovered by an international team led by scientists at the [[California Institute of Technology]] and including scientists from Australia, Germany and China. The detection of molecular hydrogen from the collision was initially unexpected because the hydrogen molecule is very fragile and is easily destroyed in shock waves of the kind expected in Stephan's Quintet. However, one solution is that when a shock front moves through a cloudy medium like the center of the group, millions of smaller shocks are produced in a turbulent layer, and this can allow molecular hydrogen to survive. [[File:Stephans Quintet sdss-g Goran Nilsson & The Liverpool Telescope.jpg|thumb|Earthbound monochrome (sdss-g filtered) image of Stephan's Quintet from the [[Liverpool Telescope]]]] ===Redshift=== NGC 7320 indicates a small [[redshift]] (790 km/s) while the other four exhibit large redshifts (near 6,600 km/s). Since galactic redshift is proportional to distance, NGC 7320 is only a foreground projection<ref name="Molesetal1998"/> and is ~39 million light-years<ref name="Molesetal1998"/> from [[Earth]], making it a possible member of the [[NGC 7331]] group, versus the 210β340 million light-years of the other four.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://pages.astronomy.ua.edu/gifimages/stephan.html|title=Stephan's Quintet|website=pages.astronomy.ua.edu|access-date=2019-12-24}}</ref> [[NGC 7319]] has a type 2 [[Seyfert galaxy|Seyfert]] nucleus. [[File:StephansQuintettIlustrated2.gif|500px|thumb|center|alt=Photo of the area of the Hubble photo, with the various galaxies labeled by NGC number|The galaxies in the vicinity of Stephan's Quintet. The rectangle indicates the area covered by the 1998β99 [[:File:StephansQuintet3.jpg|Hubble Space Telescope image]] below.]] A sixth galaxy, NGC 7320C, probably belongs to the Hickson association: it has a redshift similar to the Hickson galaxies, and a tidal tail appears to connect it with NGC 7319.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/html/im0414.html|title=National Optical Astronomy Observatory: Stephan's Quintet|website=www.noao.edu|access-date=2019-12-24|archive-date=2019-12-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191224142658/https://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/html/im0414.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> [[File:StephansQuintet3.jpg|thumb|Detail of the quintet in a photo by [[Hubble Space Telescope]], 1998β99. Credits: [[NASA]]/[[ESA]]]] ===Infrared=== Using its Mid Infrared Instrument (MIRI), the [[James Webb Space Telescope]] shows details shrouded by dust in visible light including large shock waves and tidal tails in four of the five galaxies, and previously hidden areas of star formation. These new details will contribute to insights on galaxy evolution. <ref>{{Cite web|date=2022-07-12|title=Stephan's Quintet (MIRI Image) |url=https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/034/01G7DBCJA1M1SSGKDMH7F5XMBE |access-date=2022-07-12 |website=James Webb Space Telescope}}</ref> [[File:Stephan's Quintet (MIRI Image) (2022-034-01G7DBCJA1M1SSGKDMH7F5XMBE).png|thumb|center|Four galaxies (Missing is NGC 7317) of Stephan's Quintet using MIRI by [[James Webb Space Telescope]]]]
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