The two galaxies in NASA’s picture are locked in a gravitational dance of truly cosmic proportions. On the left, the galaxy NGC 6285 is being bent and twisted out of shape by the galaxy on the right, NGC 6286. Together, the galaxies form the stellar duo Arp 293 in the constellation Draco the Dragon.
As the galaxies creep closer to one another, their gravities tug on the stellar gas and cosmic dust floating in the space between stars.
You can see the wispy tendrils of stellar material blurring out the edges of both galaxies.
Occasionally, the gravitational attraction between the two galaxies is too powerful to overcome.
When this happens, the galaxies will fall towards each other, collide and merge into a single body.
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Our own Milky Way galaxy is destined to merge with the neighbouring Andromeda galaxy in some four to five billion years.
In this particular case, however, the two galaxies are still far from a collision.
Hubble’s astronomers at the European Space Agency said: “Some galaxies are closer friends than others.
“While many live their own separate, solitary lives, others stray a little too close to a near neighbour and take their friendship even deeper.
“The two galaxies in this image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, named NGC 6285 – left – and NGC 6286 – right – have done just that.
“Together, the duo is named Arp 293 and they are interacting, their mutual gravitational attraction pulling wisps of gas and streams of dust from them, distorting their shapes, and gently smudging and blurring their appearances on the sky — to Earth-based observers, at least.”
Some galaxies are closer friends than others
European Space Agency (ESA)
Arp 293 is located roughly 290 million light-years from Earth.
NASA’s Hubble telescope is operated in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA).
The orbital observatory has seen many examples of galaxies embracing one another with their gravities.
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In one such case, Hubble photographed what appears to be a spaceship flying directly into a wormhole.
But the incredible picture reveals the ongoing collision of a long-tailed galaxy and a ring-shaped galaxy.
The merged object, dubbed Arp 148, sits about 500 million light-years away in the galaxy Ursa Major.
NASA said: “The elongated companion perpendicular to the ring suggests that Arp 148 is a unique snapshot of an ongoing collision.
“Infrared observations reveal a strong obscuration region that appears as a dark dust lane across the nucleus in optical light.”
In another picture, Hubble snapped a colliding galaxy pair resembling “a penguin fiercely guarding its precious egg”.
The space agency said: “This striking NASA Hubble Space Telescope image, which shows what looks like the profile of a celestial bird, belies the fact that close encounters between galaxies are a messy business.
“This interacting galaxy duo is collectively called Arp 142. The pair contains the disturbed, star-forming spiral galaxy NGC 2936, along with its elliptical companion, NGC 2937 at lower left.”
The gravitational forces at play in the picture have thrown the gas from one of the galaxies into a long tail “like stretched taffy”.
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