December 28, 1995
A birthday is what happens when cosmic time briefly puts down the scale of eons and pays attention to a single human year.
NGC 6240: When Galaxies Collide
Birthday · December 28, 1995
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APOD published December 28, 1995. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Sometimes even galaxies can suffer a fatal attraction. Here gravity causes two galaxies to collide in a spectacular display of energetic gas, dust, and light. When galaxies collide it is rare that any stars in the galaxies themselves collide, or that any change will be seen in a human lifetime. Rather the structure of one or both galaxies gets slowly disrupted, while interior gas condenses to new star forming regions. Stellar motions in the center of the NGC 6240 frenetic mix are among the highest in any stellar system. Galaxy mergers may emit energetic radiations across the electromagnetic spectrum. This galactic jumble is, in fact, extremely bright in infrared light.