View this post on Instagram Nothing quite like the chaotic beauty of colliding galaxies. The @NASAHubble telescope captured these galaxies crashing into each other inside of the Hercules constellation, about 230 million light-years away. They were first discovered in 1784 by William Herschel and were originally classified as a single irregular galaxy because of their odd shape. A long time ago, gravity drew the two galaxies together into the chaotic state we now observe. Stars from within both of the original galaxies now follow new paths because of the changes in gravity. Eventually the galaxies will fully merge to form a single, stable galaxy. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, will undergo a similar collision in the future with our nearest galactic neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy. However, this is not expected to happen for around 4 billion years. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Adamo et al. #NASA #Hubble #SolarSystem #Galaxy #Astrophysics #Chaos #Stars #Space #MilkyWay #Andromeda #SpaceTelescope #Hercules #Constellation #CollidingGalaxies #ChaoticState #Gravity #Astronomy #Science A post shared by NASA (@nasa) on Mar 9, 2019 at 8:58am PST
Nothing quite like the chaotic beauty of colliding galaxies. The @NASAHubble telescope captured these galaxies crashing into each other inside of the Hercules constellation, about 230 million light-years away. They were first discovered in 1784 by William Herschel and were originally classified as a single irregular galaxy because of their odd shape. A long time ago, gravity drew the two galaxies together into the chaotic state we now observe. Stars from within both of the original galaxies now follow new paths because of the changes in gravity. Eventually the galaxies will fully merge to form a single, stable galaxy. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, will undergo a similar collision in the future with our nearest galactic neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy. However, this is not expected to happen for around 4 billion years. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Adamo et al. #NASA #Hubble #SolarSystem #Galaxy #Astrophysics #Chaos #Stars #Space #MilkyWay #Andromeda #SpaceTelescope #Hercules #Constellation #CollidingGalaxies #ChaoticState #Gravity #Astronomy #Science
A post shared by NASA (@nasa) on Mar 9, 2019 at 8:58am PST