An international team led by Junko Ueda (the University of Tokyo), in close cooperation with Daisuke Iono and Ryohei Kawabe (NAOJ) revealed detailed spacial distribution of warm and dense giant molecular clouds across the nearest colliding galaxy pair from the Earth, the "Antennae galaxies", at an angular resolution that is more than 10 times higher than previous studies. The data obtained by the Submillimeter Array (SMA) in Hawaii revealed that the bulk of the giant molecular clouds are the exact fuel for future star formation and black hole growth. "What was only seen as a blurred picture before has now become increasingly sharp, thanks to the high resolution power offered by the SMA" says Ueda who is a graduate student at the University of Tokyo and the principal investigator of the team.

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