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On the 18th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's launch, NASA released new telescope images of galaxies colliding. Collisions and mergers drive galaxies' evolution. Each merger takes hundreds of millions of years, and most galaxies -- including our own Milky Way -- have merged with others in the past.
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| Initial Interaction |
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| In this image, two far-apart galaxies are just beginning to interact. The galaxy on the left shows the first signs of interaction: Its spiral arms are starting to expand into a tail as the gravitational force between the two galaxies pulls out dust and gas. |
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| Photo Credit: NASA, ESA |
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