In a galaxy far away, an event of cosmic proportions is taking place.
An image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a peculiar galaxy known as NGC 1487 (pictured here), lying about 30-million light-years away in the southern constellation of Eridanus.
Rather than viewing it as a celestial object, it could be more accurately described as an event, as two or more galaxies in the act of merge together to form a single new galaxy. Each galaxy has lost almost all traces of its original appearance, as stars and gas have been thrown by gravity in an elaborate cosmic whirl.
Unless one is very much bigger than the other, galaxies are always disrupted by the violence of the merging process. As a result, it is very difficult to determine precisely what the original galaxies looked like and, indeed, how many of them there were.
In this case, it is possible that we are seeing the merger of several dwarf galaxies that were previously clumped together in a small group.
Although older yellow and red stars can be seen in the outer regions of the new galaxy, its appearance is dominated by large areas of bright blue stars, illuminating the patches of gas that gave them life. This burst of star formation may well have been triggered by the merger.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt