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Hubble Views Two Galaxies Merging
From the collection of NASA Image and Video Library. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
This image, taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on board the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the galaxy NGC 6052, located around 230 million light-years away in the constellation of Hercules. It would be reasonable to think of this as a single abnormal galaxy, and it was originally classified as such. However, it is in fact a “new” galaxy in the process of forming. Two separate galaxies have been gradually drawn together, attracted by gravity, and have collided.
NASA Image and Video Library’s own descriptionCredit lineHubble Views Two Galaxies Merging. NASA/GSFC, 2017-12-08. Public domain. ID: GSFC_20171208_Archive_e000492.
