This view of the Antennae Galaxies, two large galaxies colliding 60 million light-years away, is one of the first research images from the Super Pressure Balloon Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT) that launched on a scientific super pressure balloon April 16, 2023 (local time New Zealand). This image and one of the Tarantula Nebula were captured as the balloon-borne telescope floated at 108,000 feet (approximately 20.5 miles or 33 km) above Earth’s surface, allowing scientists to view these scientific targets from a balloon platform in a near-space environment.
The SuperBIT telescope captures images of galaxies in the visible-to-near ultraviolet light spectrum, which is within the Hubble Space Telescope’s capabilities, but with a wider field of view. SuperBIT’s goal is to map dark matter around galaxy clusters by measuring the way these massive objects warp the space around them.
Image Credit: NASA/SuperBIT
By Monika Luabeya
Source NASA
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