ESO Releases New Image of Fornax A: The Galaxy Eater

A new composite image of a distant and radiant galaxy suggests that its past may be murderous. About 3 billion years ago the galaxy, known innocently enough as NGC 1316, destroyed a dusty spiral galaxy by consuming it whole.

About 70 million light years away from Earth, NGC 1316, also known as Fornax A for its prominent position in the southern constellation Fornax (the Furnace), has left clues about its tumultuous origins.

By peering through the Hubble Space Telescope and the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, astronomers have pieced together a new composite image of Fornax A.

The image reveals unusual dust lanes embedded within a much larger collection of starts, according to the European Space Observatory, which released the image.

"Also seen around the galaxy are very faint tidal tails - wisps and shells of stars that have been torn from their original locations and flung into intergalactic space," the ESO said in a statement. "These features are produced by complex gravitational effects on the orbits of stars when another galaxy comes too close. All of these signs point to a violent past during which NGC 1316 annexed other galaxies and suggest that the disruptive behavior is continuing."

The dust lanes, along with a population of unusually small globular clusters, suggests Fornax A swallowed a nearby dust-rich spiral galaxy about 3 billion years ago.

"As a bonus the new picture also provides a window into the distant Universe far beyond the two bright galaxies in the foreground," the ESO reported. "Most of the faint fuzzy spots in the picture are much more distant galaxies - and there is a particularly dense concentration just to the left of NGC 1316."