Cool image of two overlapping galaxies

A chance alignment between two galaxies mimics a cosmic collision.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows a rare view of a pair of overlapping galaxies. The two galaxies look like they’re colliding, but they are actually separated by tens of millions of light-years – that’s about ten times the distance between our Milky Way and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy.

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The chance alignment of the two galaxies, as seen from Earth, gives a unique look at the silhouetted spiral arms in the closer face-on spiral, NGC 3314A.

The motion of the two galaxies indicates that they are both relatively undisturbed and that they are moving in markedly different directions. This indicates they are not on any collision course. NGC 3314A’s warped shape is likely due to an encounter with another nearby galaxy, perhaps the large spiral galaxy NGC 3312 (located outside the Hubble image).

Because of the alignment, the dust lanes of the other galaxy (NGC 3314B) appear lighter than those of NGC 3314A. This is not because that galaxy lacks dust, but rather because its dust lanes are lightened by the bright fog of stars in the foreground. NGC 3314A’s dust, in contrast, is backlit by the stars of NGC 3314B, silhouetting them against the bright background.

The color composite was produced from exposures taken in blue and red light with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. The pair of galaxies lie roughly 140 million light-years from Earth, in the direction of the southern hemisphere constellation Hydra.

Bottom line: An image by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows a rare view of a pair of overlapping galaxies. The two galaxies look like they’re colliding, but they are actually separated by tens of millions of light-years – that’s about ten times the distance between our Milky Way and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy.

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