Hubble Snaps Rare View of 3 Galaxies on a Collision Course

The three galaxies that look like they’re cuddling off to the right will eventually merge with one another. An unrelated galaxy is seen off to the left, with lots of other galaxies appearing as small smudges.
ESA, Hubble & NASA, M. Sun

Let me tell you about the birds and the bees and the galaxies. Sometimes, when galaxies get very close together, they merge into each other and make one large galaxy. NASA and the European Space Agency’s Hubble Space Telescope captured a rare view of not just two, but three galaxies on a collision course.

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A closer look at the galactic trio.

ESA, Hubble & NASA, M. Sun

The trio is known as SDSSCGB 10189 and its members are within 50,000 light-years of one another. “While that might sound like a safe distance, for galaxies this makes them extremely close neighbors,” ESA said in a statement Friday. For comparison, the Milky Way’s closest large galaxy buddy is Andromeda at 2.5 million light-years from Earth.

The Hubble observation came about as scientists were investigating Brightest Cluster Galaxies, or BCGs. The collision-course trio in the image could be a clue to how those bright, massive galaxies form. SDSSCGB 10189 may join the ranks of BCGs after its merger. 

The galactic merging process can get messy, as seen in another Hubble image, where two galaxies play tug of war. The galaxies of SDSSCGB 10189 are still in a scenic flirting stage of their journey, but they’ll eventually join forces, and perhaps shine brighter than ever.