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LKH Milky Way Merger Illustration

An illustration of two galaxies in the midst of a collision against a dark, star-filled background. The collision takes up the middle third of the illustration. On the right, a larger galaxy is viewed at an angle from 11 o’clock to 4 o’clock, with a white-yellow core surrounded by mottled brown dust lanes and faint bluish spiral arms. To the left, a smaller, bright blue-white galaxy is stretched into a curved, hook-like shape as gravity distorts it. A broad, glowing bridge of pale blue gas and stars extends off the galaxy at the left, while wispy streams extend above and below the larger galaxy at the right. The words “Artist’s Concept” appear in the lower left corner.

About 12 billion years ago, a dwarf galaxy known as LKH (left) collided with a young Milky Way (right) and merged with it. This artist's concept portrays that collision. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope uncovered definitive evidence of this long-ago collision by studying ancient globular star clusters.

  • Release Date
    August 17, 2026
  • Science Release
    Hubble Solves Merger Mystery From Milky Way’s Early Years
    Read the release
  • Credit
    Illustration: NASA, ESA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

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  • Full res (For Display), 3840 × 2160
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  • Full res (For Print), 3840 × 2160
    tif (23.74 MB)
  • For Display (Half Res), 1920 × 1080
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Details

Last Updated
Aug 18, 2026
Location
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Contact
Media

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov

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