January 1, 1999
On the day you were born, the universe did what it has always done best: transformed chaos into beauty.
ESO202-G23: Merging Galaxies
Birthday · January 1, 1999
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APOD published January 1, 1999. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
SO202-G23 is a colorful mess. It is a collision between two galaxies taking place over hundreds of millions of years. The representative colors give astronomers some idea of what is going on. Visible in this jumble is an active nucleus spewing ultraviolet radiation which lights up surrounding gas (blue); galactic arms contorted by the gravity of the collision (green); a star forming complex left of center (blue); and dust (red). In billions of years this mess might settle into a relatively normal looking galaxy.