Good as these are, astronomers say, the best is yet to come. UA astronomer Donald W. McCarthy and graduate students Joannah Hinz and Rose Finn used an infrared electronic camera they designed to photograph spiral galaxy NGC 7479 in the constellation Pegasus. However, NGC 7479's nucleus appears much more active, McCarthy said. In addition, a long bar-shaped structure and spiral arms that are not symmetrical are visible in its central region. These unusual features are attributed to the fact that NGC 7479 is cannibalizing another galaxy in a merger that began 5 million years ago.
Infrared light is much redder than the red light visible to the human eye.
Observations in infrared light enable astronomers to penetrate the obscuring dust in the spiral arms to examine the full extent and structure of the galaxy. Two infrared images combined for a true color image that shows structures at the very heart of the galaxy. Stars in this image are more blurred as combining the colors produces a halo effect around the stars. The new image is very sharp, 0.80 arcsec, or the angular size of a dime seen from three miles away. That's 75 times sharper than the resolution of the human eye.