File:Beauty From Chaos (50614766341).jpg

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Appearing within the boundless darkness of space, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s snapshot of NGC 34 looks more like an otherworldly, bioluminescent creature from the deep oceans than a galaxy. Lying in the constellation Cetus (The Sea Monster), the galaxy’s outer region appears almost translucent, pinpricked with stars and strange wispy tendrils.

The main cause for this galaxy’s odd appearance lies in its past. If we were able to reverse time by a few million years, we would see two beautiful spiral galaxies on a direct collision course. When these galaxies collided into one another, their intricate patterns and spiral arms were permanently disturbed. This image shows the galaxy's bright centre, a result of this merging event that has created a burst of new star formation and lit up the surrounding gas. As the galaxies continue to intertwine and become one, NGC 34’s shape will become more like that of an peculiar galaxy, devoid of any distinct shape.

In the vastness of space, collisions between galaxies are quite rare events, but they can be numerous in mega-clusters containing hundreds or even thousands of galaxies.

Credit:

ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Adamo et al.
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Source Beauty From Chaos
Author Hubble ESA

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This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
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This image was originally posted to Flickr by Hubble Space Telescope / ESA at https://flickr.com/photos/51268976@N08/50614766341. It was reviewed on 7 December 2020 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.

7 December 2020

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Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current12:23, 7 December 2020Thumbnail for version as of 12:23, 7 December 20201,280 × 1,246 (105 KB)Eyes Roger (talk | contribs)Transferred from Flickr via #flickr2commons

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