Galaxies don't normally look like this. NGC 6745 [ http://heritage.sts…] actually shows the results of two galaxies that have been colliding [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] for only hundreds of millions of years. Just off the above photograph [ http://heritage.sts…] to the lower right is the smaller galaxy, moving away. The larger galaxy, pictured above [ http://heritage.sts…], used to be a spiral galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] but now is damaged and appears peculiar [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. Gravity has distorted the shapes of the galaxies. Although it is likely that no stars in the two galaxies directly collided [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], the gas, dust [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], and ambient magnetic fields [ http://www-spof.gsf…] do interact directly. In fact, a knot of gas pulled off the larger galaxy on the lower right has now begun to form stars. NGC 6745 [ http://heritage.sts…] spans about 80 thousand light-years across and is located about 200 million light-years [ http://www.howstuff…] away.
Explanation
Galaxies don't normally look like this. NGC 6745 [ http://heritage.sts…] actually shows the results of two galaxies that have been colliding [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] for only hundreds of millions of years. Just off the above photograph [ http://heritage.sts…] to the lower right is the smaller galaxy, moving away. The larger galaxy, pictured above [ http://heritage.sts…], used to be a spiral galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] but now is damaged and appears peculiar [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. Gravity has distorted the shapes of the galaxies. Although it is likely that no stars in the two galaxies directly collided [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], the gas, dust [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], and ambient magnetic fields [ http://www-spof.gsf…] do interact directly. In fact, a knot of gas pulled off the larger galaxy on the lower right has now begun to form stars. NGC 6745 [ http://heritage.sts…] spans about 80 thousand light-years across and is located about 200 million light-years [ http://www.howstuff…] away.
