NASA's Hubble Space Telescope Captures a 'Galactic Connection' Between Two Spiral Galaxies

Two spiral galaxies connect in this new Hubble image.

A galactic display of affection seems to have been captured deep in space with two galaxies overlapping each other!

NASA's iconic Hubble Space Telescope holds a plethora of stunning images of the universe, and this recent photo shows a "galactic connection" as it shows two spiral galaxies connecting with each other.

Galactic Overlap
Hubble's space telescope image of two galaxies that are touching. Two spiralling galaxies that overlap one another may be seen in the image's centre. The core of the topmost galaxy is mostly white, with more pronounced orange hues at the two extremities. With rusty undertones, the galaxy on the bottom of the pair is mostly orange. Small spots of colour, which represent far-off galaxies, are scattered around the background of the image, which is filled with the pitch-blackness of space. ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Keel

Purely by Accident

The galaxies are more than a billion light-years away from Earth and are referred to as SDSS J115331 and LEDA 2073461. The European Space Agency (ESA), a partner in the observatory, said that while the new Hubble Space Telescope picture appears to show the two galactic entities merging, it is only optical illusion galaxies aren't truly interacting with one another at all.

The alignment of the two galaxies was captured purely by accident; they are not truly interacting, despite the fact that they look to collide in this image. While these two galaxies may be just passing ships in the sky, Hubble has photographed a stunning collection of interacting galaxies before this new image as well.

Galaxy Zoo Project

One of many Hubble observations exploring key aspects of the Galaxy Zoo project is this image. The Galaxy Zoo project, which began in 2007, and its offshoots are enormous citizen science initiatives that crowdsource galaxy classifications from a pool of hundreds of thousands of participants.

These volunteers categorize galaxies that robotic telescopes have captured, and they frequently are the first people to ever see an astronomical object, according to ESA.

Volunteers working on the initial Galaxy Zoo project found a variety of bizarre and amazing galaxies, including unusual 3-armed spiral galaxies and colliding ring galaxies.

The astronomers overseeing the project filed for Hubble time to observe the unique inhabitants of the Galaxy Zoo - but true to the initiative's crowdsourced roots, the list of targets was determined by a public vote.

Webb's Sharp Image of Orion Nebula

Meanwhile, James Webb Space Telescope has recently captured the sharpest, most detailed image of the Orion Nebula, known as the "picture book of star creation." It is located in the constellation Orion, 1,350 light-years from Earth.

Ionized gas, hydrocarbons, molecular gas, dust, and scattered starlight are all shown in this composite image created by combining the results of several different filters.

Scientists from more than 100 different institutions across 18 different nations collaborated under the name PDRs4All to acquire the photos as part of the Early Release Science initiative.

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Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla

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