SPACE WATCH
By Andrey Oreshko and Dietmar Hager – Some 60 million light-years away in the southerly constellation Corvus, two large galaxies collided. But the stars in the two galaxies, cataloged as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, don’t collide in the course of the ponderous event, lasting hundreds of millions of years. Instead, their large clouds of molecular gas and dust do, triggering furious episodes of star formation near the center of the cosmic wreckage. Spanning about 500 thousand light-years, this stunning view also reveals new star clusters and matter flung far from the scene of the accident by gravitational tidal forces. Of course, the suggestive visual appearance of the extended arcing structures gives the galaxy pair its popular name – The Antennae.
Image Credit & Copyright: Acquisition and data reduction – Andrey Oreshko (Elena Remote Observatory), Processing – Dietmar Hager (stargazer-observatory)
By Charles Riley – Congress is now staring down a series of deadlines to raise the country’s legal borrowing limit. First up: May 16, Treasury’s 
By Susan Berfield – Four months in office, they (Rick Snyder, Michigan Governor and Andy Dillon, Treasurer) have overseen the passage of a law that’s as radical an experiment as any in the country. It dramatically speeds up the process by which financially troubled cities, towns, and school districts can be taken over by state-appointed emergency managers.
By Al Lewis – It’s hard to believe it took the Federal Reserve Bank until 2011 to come up with the idea of having its chairman do a press conference. Since your organization is so clearly behind the information-age curve, you might appreciate a few pointers for next time.
