Are you ready for some #CosmicCollisions?⁣

Are you ready for some #CosmicCollisions?⁣:

⁣Galaxies are cosmic neighborhoods of stars, dust, and gas held together by gravity – and there are billions of them in our universe! Sometimes, those galaxies interact and merge with each other, pulled in by their mutual gravity. In fact, our own Milky Way Galaxy will merge with the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy in a few billion years.⁣

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While these sorts of interactions take course over millions and millions of years, our Hubble Space Telescope captures snapshots of mergers in progress. In fact, a batch of new interacting galaxy images and information are coming your way now through February 2 – starting with this new image of Arp 300!⁣

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Arp 300 consists of two galaxies gravitationally interacting with each other. This causes increased star formation, seen as the bright blue regions in the spiraling arms of these galaxies.⁣

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Image description: Near the top center of the image, a galaxy full of bright blue stars shines. To its lower left is a spiral galaxy, also full of blue stars and dark brown dust. Other distant galaxies and stars fill the black background of space.⁣

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Image credit: NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton (University of Washington), and R. Windhorst (Arizona State University); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)⁣

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#NASA #Hubble #Space #Science #Galaxy #Stars #Astronomy #Universe #Cosmos

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23 January 2024