Galactic collision captured in stunning detail

[soulxtc]

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have snapped the most detailed image ever of a pair of colliding galaxies, known as the Antenna galaxy.

The galaxies are the nearest merging pair to Earth, and the youngest too: the collision began about 500m years ago. As the two galaxies smash into one another, they create ideal conditions for new stars to be born. And new stars are forming in their billions.

http://regmedia.co.uk/2006/10/17/antenna_galaxies.jpg

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/17/galactic_collision/




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http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/screen/heic0615a.jpg

[DigitalJunkie]

WOW, nice image! You can see those two galaxies, are causing violent conditions across the space there.

[shawners]

Nevermind, thats a picture of a stain in my garage.. Damn chemicals. I hate that the garage was left open for the hubble telescope to look into.

[DwarfBaby]

Scientists predict our galaxy will collide with our neighboring giant galaxy Andromeda anywhere from 2.5 to 5 billion years from now. I’m sure distant galaxies will say hey look at the colliding galaxies that actually collided 2 billion years ago.

The fact of the matter is life almost certainly exists beyond our scope. Time is irrelevant. To be even more direct no galaxies ever collide. We are simply forming a greater galaxy. The two giant black holes that form our galaxy and Andromeda’s will simply form a greater galaxy. Only a few planets and few suns will actually collide. Sort of the US Air force’s idea of “Big Sky” only to the power of a million.

Even Einstein said that Gravity was Natures Perpetual Motion design. I regretfully must quote a line from the film Phenomena saying “Everything is on it’s way to something else”