Galactic Waterspout

In this Hubble Space Telescope image, the galaxy NGC 2799 (on the left) is seemingly being pulled into the center of the galaxy NGC 2798 (on the right). These galaxies are interacting gravitationally and may eventually merge. Already, these two galaxies have seemingly formed a sideways feature resembling a waterspout, with stars from NGC 2799 appearing to fall into NGC 2798 almost like drops of water. Galactic mergers can take place over several hundred million to over a billion years. While one might think the merger of two galaxies would be catastrophic for the stellar systems within, the sheer amount of space between stars means that stellar collisions are unlikely and stars typically drift past each other.