Colliding Galaxies - NGC 7318a-b, Hubble Space Telescope, Rudy Pohl

Colliding Galaxies - NGC 7318a-b, Hubble Space Telescope

Colliding Galaxies - NGC 7318a-b, Hubble Space Telescope, Rudy Pohl

Colliding Galaxies - NGC 7318a-b, Hubble Space Telescope

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Description

Colliding Galaxies - NGC 7318a-b, Hubble Space Telescope

NGC 7318a (top) and NCGC 7318b (bottom) are a pair of bright spiral galaxies colliding into one another at millions of kilometers per hour about 300 million light-years from Earth. They appear in the Constellation Pegasus and are members of a group of galaxies called Stephan's Quintet. This collision can help provide a view into what happened in the early universe, around 10 billion years ago.

Many people, when they look at a picture of Stephan's Quintet, see only four objects and wonder why these are called a quintet. The reason is because NGC 7318 is actually two galaxies appearing as one.

Data acquisition: Hubble Legacy Archive, NASA

Data processing: Rudy Pohl

Image: RGB colour

Processing software: Fits Liberator, Photoshop CS5

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Colliding Galaxies - NGC 7318a-b, Hubble Space Telescope, Rudy Pohl