Two galaxies, each has a bright-white core. Their cores are very close together. They are surrounded by light blue gas, dust, and stars that form a ring around the cores.

Hubble Views Arp-Madore 2026-424

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope snapshot reveals what looks like an uncanny pair of glowing eyes staring in our direction. The piercing "eyes" are the most prominent feature of what resembles the face of an otherworldly creature. This frightening object is actually the result of a titanic head-on collision between two galaxies. Each "eye" is the bright core of a galaxy, the result of one galaxy slamming into another. The outline of the face is a ring of young blue stars. The system is Arp-Madore 2026-424, from the Arp-Madore "Catalogue of Southern Peculiar Galaxies and Associations." Although galaxy collisions are common — especially back in the young universe — most of them are not head-on smashups, like the collision that likely created this Arp-Madore system. The violent encounter gives the system an arresting "ring" structure for only a short amount of time, about 100 million years. The two galaxies will merge completely in about 1 to 2 billion years. For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2019/news-2019-51

Credits: NASA, ESA, and J. Dalcanton, B.F. Williams, and M. Durbin (University of Washington)
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TakenOctober 28, 2019
Image CreditNASA, ESA, and J. Dalcanton, B.F. Williams, and M. Durbin (University of Washington)
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