Galaxies with a Lot of Dust Surrounding Them (IMAGE)
Caption
The galaxies in these four images have so much dust surrounding them that the brilliant light from their quasars cannot be seen in these Hubble Space Telescope images. Quasars are the brilliant beacons of light that are powered by black holes feasting on captured material, and in the process, heating some of the matter to millions of degrees. The images at top right, bottom left, and bottom right reveal three of the survey's normal-looking galaxies that host quasars. Only one galaxy in the sample, at top left, shows evidence of an interaction with another galaxy. The two white blobs are the cores from both galaxies. A streamer of material, colored brown and blue, also lies below the merging galaxies.The galaxies existed roughly eight billion to 12 billion years ago, during a peak epoch of black-hole growth. The galaxies' masses are comparable to our Milky Way's. The blue patches are star-forming regions. The brown areas are either dust or old stars. The images were taken by Hubble's Wide Field Camera three between 2011 and 2012.
Credit
Credit: NASA, ESA, and K. Schawinski (Yale University)
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