The deep NGC 4438, the Eyes galaxies

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  NGC 4438 and NGC 4435 are two galaxies that are part of the so-called “Markarian Chain”, a beautiful string of 8-10 galaxies in the constellation Virgo. NGC 4438, on the lower center of this image, is a highly distorted spiral galaxy, due to gravitational forces from encounters with the massive M86 and other galaxies in this cluster. The remarkable feature in this image is the presence of  bright red, very faint ionized Hydrogen II clouds that lie between M86 (out of this image, to the right side) and NGC 4438. These two galaxies seem to have undergone a gravitational encounter in the not so distant past. As a result, the least massive galaxy (NGC 4438) has been visibly distorted. This encounter could explain the presence of stripped away Hydrogen clouds that show up here between both galaxies. But there is some debate as whether these clouds are indeed at the same distance as the galaxies (and thus, the result of the collision) or they are just galactic cirri (a frequent phenomenon), belonging to our galaxy and, just by coincidence, angularly, in this area. Additional research is being conducted to clarify this question. The theory of these clouds being the result of the galactic interaction is gaining momentum, recently. These clouds were taken with binned 30-minute exposures to add up to over 37 hours.