Merging Galaxies, Cosmic Collisions
Exciting Hubble Space Telescope images of more than a dozen very distant colliding galaxies indicate that, at least in some cases, big massive galaxies form through collisions between smaller ones, in a generation after generation never-ending story. The Hubble image shows the paired galaxies very close together with streams of stars being pulled out of the galaxies. The colliding "parent" galaxies lose their shape and smoother galaxies are formed. The whole merging process can take less than a billion years. The Hubble Space Telescope imaged 81 galaxies in the galaxy cluster 8 billion light-years away. Astronomers say the collisions have never been observed before at this frequency. Many of the collisions involve very massive galaxies, and the end result will be even more massive galaxies.
Credits: Pieter van Dokkum, Marijn Franx (Univerversity of Gronigen/Leiden), ESA and NASA
Image Number: PR99-28A
Date of Release: July 15, 1999
Merging Galaxies, Cosmic Collisions
Exciting Hubble Space Telescope images of more than a dozen very distant colliding galaxies indicate that, at least in some cases, big massive galaxies form through collisions between smaller ones, in a generation after generation never-ending story. The Hubble image shows the paired galaxies very close together with streams of stars being pulled out of the galaxies. The colliding "parent" galaxies lose their shape and smoother galaxies are formed. The whole merging process can take less than a billion years. The Hubble Space Telescope imaged 81 galaxies in the galaxy cluster 8 billion light-years away. Astronomers say the collisions have never been observed before at this frequency. Many of the collisions involve very massive galaxies, and the end result will be even more massive galaxies.
Credits: Pieter van Dokkum, Marijn Franx (Univerversity of Gronigen/Leiden), ESA and NASA
Image Number: PR99-28A
Date of Release: July 15, 1999