Hubble spots two galaxies in the midst of collision

The European Space Agency's Hubble Picture of the Week shows two spiral galaxies that are in the midst of a collision. At first glance, Arp 122 looks like a single galaxy, but in reality, it comprises two galaxies - the round, face-on spiral called LEDA 59642 and the other that seems to lie in front of the first one, called NGC 6040.

This dramatic galaxy merger is located at a very safe distance of roughly 570 million light-years from Earth. In the lower-left corner of this Hubble image, a large elliptical galaxy appears as light radiating from a point. NGC 6041 is the central member of the galaxy cluster that Arp 122 resides in.

"Galactic collisions and mergers are monumentally energetic and dramatic events, but they take place on a very slow timescale. For example, the Milky Way is on track to collide with its nearest galactic neighbour, the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), but these two galaxies have a good four billion years to go before they actually meet. The process of colliding and merging will not be a quick one either: it might take hundreds of millions of years to unfold. These collisions take so long because of the truly massive distances involved," ESA explained in a post.

When galaxies undergo a merger, the resulting structure is often thought to be regular or elliptical as the process disrupts more complex features, such as the distinct spiral arms seen in spiral galaxies. Arp 122 is currently in the process of merging and it would be fascinating to know what Arp 122 will look like once the merging process is complete, but that will take a long time.

📷 This NASA/ESA @HUBBLE_space Telescope image features Arp 122, a peculiar galaxy that in fact comprises two galaxies — NGC 6040, the tilted, warped spiral galaxy and LEDA 59642, the round, face-on spiral — that are in the midst of a collision. Galactic collisions and mergers… pic.twitter.com/riQOmPKb4r

— ESA (@esa) January 8, 2024