Surprising image provides new tool for studying galaxy
Thursday, November 14, 2013 - 11:00
in Astronomy & Space
Astronomers studying gas halos around nearby galaxies were surprised when detailed studies with the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) showed that one of their subjects is not a single galaxy, but rather two, nearly perfectly superimposed on the sky to masquerade as one. The discovery allowed them to use the alignment to learn otherwise-unobtainable facts about the nearer galaxy.