Flight of fancy: the fatal clash of three galaxies

TO SOME it looks like a ghostly bird. Others see Tinkerbell, the fairy in J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan.

But the wings of this cosmic creature are truly astronomical, stretching 100,000 light years from tip to tip.

An international team of astronomers has discovered a very rare sight - a collision between three galaxies, about 650 million light years away.

Involving two spiral-shaped galaxies, and a third irregular mass of stars, the crash was caught by the infrared camera of the European Southern Observatory's telescope in Chile.

"The first thing that struck us when we saw the infrared image was how striking the shape was," said an Australian member of the team, Stuart Ryder.

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Look at this beauty; Amazing isn't it?

yes ,very beautiful.

believe it or not,earth isnt from the milky way,it came from an orbiting dwarf galaxy that collided in such a fashion.

and andromeda will collide with the milky way in 3 billion years time,what a sight that will be!!!.

Flagged my friend. I think that it is incredible how many things we see in the great abyss look so similar to everyday objects. The 'eye of God' springs to mind

Is this collision month or something?

all major news about the universe i heared today involved collisions. The possible collision at mars, a galaxy being blasted the the radiation of a supermassive black hole and now this.


Really spectaculair!

Wonderful post, that image is simply amazing. Thank you


Im trying to wrap my mind around the effects this would cause to the planets from some of those stars.

It truly is a shame some of us were born in such a destructive era, when we could be exploring this incredible universe we live in.

The figure appears as energy, fire energy with the red and blue ( I'm sure this has to do with the method of photography) but none the less it look like a Traubador coming to entertain.

Perfect times for a visitor after the celestial signs we just had going on if anyone took the time to educate themselves.

I looked a a ray of the sun one day pondering their ability to split off, yet maintain the balance of color, and after looking deeply into one prisim I saw a flicker, deep down in my perceptive lens and I saw a fliker moving into the scene, so to say and a nother at the same time. both blue and red. but the blue and red of fire energy. It seemed by focusing on the ray/prisim of the sunbeam and osmoisis'n with it, you know the connection of intstincts, then being given more, the dancing sparks coming to offer ultimate rewards based on being trapped in the "matrix" or more likely the story about the angels curious ones like us lol got to close and became trapped. Trapping can be reversed by going out the same way you can in, or breaking the mirrored illusion.

I am ramblng.

Edit to add

I am just wondering if something has been heralded to take us for a fast ride?

[edit on 30-12-2007 by interestedalways]