Supernova Factory in Arp 299

This image of the colliding galaxy pair Arp 299 (also known as NGC 3690/IC694) was produced combining radio wavelength observations from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array with data from the Hubble Space Telescope. Radio emission is shown as red, near-infrared emission as green, and ultraviolet emission as blue. This colliding pair is a region of vigorous star formation which has been investigated in the past. Since 1990, four supernova explosions have been seen optically in Arp 299. Observations with the NRAO's Very Large Array (VLA) showed a region near the nucleus of one of the colliding galaxies which had all the earmarks of prolific star formation. Observations with the VLBA and the GBT in 2002 and 2003 led to the discovery of 5 supernovae concentrated in this region.

The radio emission is continuum emission at a frequency of 5 GHz. The near-infrarred/ultraviolet data are observations made with the Hubble Space Telescope, obtained from the data archive at the STScI. The near-infrared emission is from an HST/WFPC2 observation through the F814 filter, and the ultraviolet emission is from an HST/WFPC2 observation through the F255+F300 filters.

Legacy Astronomical Images

NRAO/AUI/NSF does not hold full copyright for this image. Contact the archivist for details.

Legacy Astronomical Image

Arp 299

HST/STScI

J. Ulvestad, S. Neff, S. Teng

Very Large Array (VLA)

HST

2000-10-24

continuum

C

6 cm

5.0 GHz

RA 11:28:33.000, Dec: 58:33:58.000 (J2000)

0.014167 x 0.019722 degrees

Contact the archivist for a high resolution tif of this image.

Galaxies Series

Peculiar Unit