Cannibalism is never so pretty as when viewed at a distance of 24 million light years.
The Akari space-based infrared telescope, jointly operated by Japan's JAXA and the European 
Space Agency (ESA) is sending back new pictures of the M101 spiral galaxy, showing new echoes of the interstellar predator's presumed run-in with a peer.
Most spiral galaxies show the brightest star formation patterns in their central cores. As seen in this picture, M101 has bright spots all around its rim as well. Astronomers chalk this up to the galaxy having brushed close (in cosmic terms) to a companion sometime in the past, dragging gas out into its own orbit.
That gas is now falling from the outer edge towards the center of M101 at a rate of about 93 miles per second, triggering new formation of stars, astronomers say.
The M101 picture is a composite of observations at four infrared wavelengths, with blue representing relatively cold dust, red warm dust, green showing visible light, and cyan the far-ultraviolet, produced by the new star formations.
Akari has also been making infrared observations of galaxies in the extreme distance, and thus very distant past. The pictures here aren't quite as classically beautiful, showing only a freckling of galaxies against an infrared background. But they're leading to interesting conclusions, the JAXA/ESA astronomers say.
As the pinpoints of light representing galaxies get fainter, they get more numerous, indicating – as previously thought – that many galaxies have merged over time. However, this process does not seem to have happened as quickly as earlier estimated, astronomers said:
(Photo one: Galaxy M101. Photo two: The distant universe, as seen at four separate infrared wavelengths. Credit: JAXA)
