This new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captures an ongoing cosmic collision between two massive galaxies.
This Hubble image shows the unusual object LEDA 18516. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.
The galaxy crash, called LEDA 18516, is located in the constellation Lepus, approximately 500 million light-years away from Earth.
Also known as IRAS 06076-2139, LEDA 18516 is composed of two separate spiral galaxies rushing past each other at about 1.2 million mph (2 million kph).
This speed is most likely too fast for them to merge and form a single galaxy.
However, because of their small separation of only about 20,000 light-years, the galaxies will distort one another through the force of gravity while passing each other, changing their structures on a grand scale.
Such galactic interactions are a common sight for Hubble, and have long been a field of study for astronomers.
The intriguing behaviors of interacting galaxies take many forms: galactic cannibalism, galaxy harassment and even galaxy collisions.
Our own Milky Way galaxy will eventually fall victim to the latter, merging with the Andromeda Galaxy in about 4.5 billion years.
The fate of Milky Way shouldn’t be alarming though: whilst galaxies are populated by billions of stars, the distances between individual stars are so large that hardly any stellar collisions will occur.
This image of LEDA 18516 is a composite of separate exposures acquired by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and its Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).
Five filters were used to sample various wavelengths.
The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter.
