New NASA Videos Show Galaxy Formation, Solar Eruptions And Intense Heat

Two hot new NASA videos show the evolution of galaxies, solar eruptions and the intense heat produced by both.

New video from NASA's Chandra X-ray telescope shows an enormous cloud of hot gas called a halo that surrounds two distant colliding galaxies. The halo has as much mass as about 10 billion Suns, spans 300,000 light years and has a temperature of more than 7 million degrees.

The collision of the two Milky Way-sized galaxies caused a baby boom of new stars that has lasted at least 200 million years. Some of the stars in the halo raced through their evolution quickly, exploding into supernovae.

In the future, the two spiral galaxies will likely merge into an elliptical galaxy over the course of millions of years.

Credit: NASA/CXC/J. DePasquale

The below video shows a solar event from an active region of the Sun. Set to some overly dramatic music, the video shows a huge flame of plasma erupting from the Sun. According to Space.com the eruption went out into space, not towards Earth. But the active region is moving towards the Earth-facing side of the Sun. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the event on May 1st.

Credit: NASA / SDO / Mash Mix: SPACE.com