Science News / TANGO TWINS

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Sequencing the dead to save the living: Reviving ancient genomes of long-extinct creatures offers a window into past extinctions—and may help prevent future die outs
No gene is an island: Even as biologists catalog the discrete parts of life forms, an emerging picture reveals that life’s functions arise from interconnectedness
The decider: Informing the debate over the reality of ‘free will’ requires learning something about the lateral habenula
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TANGO TWINS

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Like two dancers grabbing hands as they pass, the galaxy NGC 5427 at lower left and its southern twin NGC 5426 at upper right, are beginning a temperate, gravitational tango. In about 100 million years, the two will merge into one large, elliptical galaxy. Astronomers at the Gemini South telescope in Chile recently imaged the galaxy twins, which are 90 million light-years away and sit in the Virgo constellation. The image is perhaps a preview for the Milky Way. In about 3 or 4 billion years, it will merge with its sister spiral, the Andromeda Galaxy, which is currently about 2.6 million light-years away. — Ashley Yeager

Credit: Gemini Observatory

Found in: Atom & Cosmos

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