Free Republic

Two merging spiral galaxies are caught twisting each other into cosmic knots in a spectacular photo by the Hubble Space Telescope. The colliding galaxies comprise a system known as Arp 256, which lies about 350 million light-years from Earth, in the constellation Cetus (the Whale). "The galaxies are ablaze with dazzling regions of star formation: The bright blue fireworks are stellar nurseries, churning out hot infant stars," officials with the European Space Agency (ESA) wrote in a description of the image Thursday (March 8). (The Hubble project is a collaboration between NASA and ESA.) "These vigorous bursts of new...

Explanation: Magnificent island universe NGC 5033 lies some 40 million light-years away in the well-trained northern constellation Canes Venatici. This telescopic portrait reveals striking details of dust lanes winding near the galaxy's bright core and majestic but relatively faint spiral arms. Speckled with pink star forming regions and massive blue star clusters, the arms span over 100,000 light-years, similar in size to our own spiral Milky Way. A well-studied example of the class of Seyfert active galaxies, NGC 5033 has a core that is very bright and variable. The emission is likely powered by a supermassive black hole. The bright...