August 5, 2010 11:52 AM

What Colliding Galaxies Look Like: Photos That Will Amaze

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The Antennae galaxies

(Credit: NASA)

Earlier today NASA released this gorgeous new image of two colliding galaxies that began colliding about 100 million years ago.

The imaging data, which were taken between 1999 and 2005, show the Antennae galaxies, so called because of the long antenna-like "arms," viewed in wide-angle views of the system. NASA says the features got generated by tidal forces produced during the collision, which is still occurring some 62 million light-years away from the Earth.

It must be one heck of a show to observe up close as it has led to the formation "of millions of stars in clouds of dusts and gas in the galaxies". The biggest of these young stars have already grown up and since exploded as supernovas.

To find your way through this composite photo, the image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory is blue, the Hubble Space Telescope is in ggold and brown, while and the Spitzer Space Telescope is in red.

5 Photos

Views of The Antennae Galaxies

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by wuggywow August 6, 2010 10:05 AM EDT
Wow, that is totally amazing.

Lou
www.web-privacy.at.tc
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by drogers73005 August 6, 2010 9:48 AM EDT
Is it just me, or does this look very much like a human embryo?
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by rf35 August 6, 2010 10:23 AM EDT
Actually, I think it looks more like a chicken embryo. Then again, most vertebrate embryos look about the same.
by star_ss433 August 5, 2010 11:33 PM EDT
By 'colliding' it means becoming bound by each other's gravity. Galaxies are mostly empty space, so stars rarely collide.
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