The NASA and European Space Agency’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured an image of a group of three unique galaxies, known collectively as NGC 7764A.
Yesterday, the Russia Today website said that the three galaxies are referred to individually as NGC 7764A1, NGC 7764A2 and NGC 7764A3.
Hubble, using the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Wide Field Camera 3, was able to observe the three galaxies regarding 425 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Phoenix.
The two galaxies in the upper right of the image appear to be interacting with each other. The long trails of stars and gas extending from them give the impression that both have just been hit at great speed, thrown into disarray by the bowling-ball-shaped galaxy in the lower left of the image.
In fact, interactions between galaxies occur over very long timescales, and galaxies collide rarely.
By a happy coincidence, the collective interaction of these galaxies has caused the two to form in the upper right of the figure, which from the perspective of our solar system resembles the spacecraft known as USS Enterprise from the sci-fi series Star Trek.
