Similar in size to the Milky Way,
elliptical galaxy NGC 7600 is about 150 thousand light-years distant.
In
this deep image, spanning about 1/2 degree on
the sky
toward the constellation Aquarius, NGC 7600 sports a remarkable
outer halo of nested shells and broad circumgalactic structures.
The tantalizing features can be explained by
the accretion of
dark matter and stars on
a cosmic timescale.
In fact, a movie generated by simulating galaxy formation using a
cosmological model with
cold
dark matter for the halos of merging galaxies
reproduces the appearance of NGC 7600 in amazing detail.
The remarkable simulation movie is
available here on Vimeo and
here in other
formats.
It presents compelling evidence that detailed features of
galaxy mergers observed with small, wide
field telescopes on planet Earth, are natural consequences of
galaxy formation and fundamental
properties of dark matter.
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