            APOD: 2018 May 23 - Spiral Galaxy NGC 4038 in Collision

                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
 fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a
                           professional astronomer.

                                  2018 May 23
                                      [2]
                     Spiral Galaxy NGC 4038 in Collision
    Image Credit: NASA [3] , ESA [4] , Hubble [5] , HLA [6] ; Processing &
                        Copyright: Domingo Pestana [7]

Explanation: This galaxy is having a bad millennium. In fact, the past 100
million years haven't been so good, and probably the next billion or so will
be quite tumultuous. Visible toward the lower right, NGC 4038 used to be a
normal spiral galaxy, minding its own business, until NGC 4039, to its upper
left, crashed into it [8] . The evolving wreckage, known famously as the
Antennae [9] , is featured here. As gravity restructures each galaxy, clouds
of gas slam into each other, bright blue knots of stars form, massive stars
form and explode [10] , and brown filaments of dust are strewn about.
Eventually the two galaxies [11] will converge into one larger spiral galaxy.
Such collisions [12]  are not unusual, and even our own Milky Way Galaxy [13]
has undergone several in the past and is predicted to collide [14] with our
neighboring Andromeda Galaxy [15]  in a few billion years. The frames that
compose this image [16]  were taken by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope
[17]  by professional astronomers to better understand galaxy collisions [18]
. These frames -- and many other deep space images from Hubble [19]  -- have
since been made public [20] , allowing interested amateurs to download and
process [21]  them into, for example, this visually stunning composite.

                     Tomorrow's picture: The Expanse [22]

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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1805/Antennae_HubblePestana_4081.jpg
  [3] https://www.nasa.gov/
  [4] http://www.esa.int/
  [5] https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/main/index.html
  [6] https://hla.stsci.edu/
  [7] https://www.flickr.com/photos/122467237@N08/
  [8] http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=28941
  [9] ap110429.html
  [10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8en5uDqw0aM
  [11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antennae_Galaxies
  [12] ap120717.html
  [13] http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/galaxy.html
  [14] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqjSgZdo5XE
  [15] ap090510.html
  [16] http://heritage.stsci.edu/2006/46/original.html
  [17] https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/story/index.html
  [18] http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1995AJ....109..960W
  [19] http://www.stsci.edu/hst/HST_overview
  [20] http://hla.stsci.edu/hla_help.html
  [21] http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1718649/thumbs/s-CAT-COMPUTER-large300.jpg
  [22] ap180524.html
  [23] ap180522.html
  [24] archivepix.html
  [25] lib/apsubmit2015.html
  [26] lib/aptree.html
  [27] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search
  [28] calendar/allyears.html
  [29] /apod.rss
  [30] lib/edlinks.html
  [31] lib/about_apod.html
  [32] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=180523
  [33] ap180524.html
  [34] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  [35] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  [36] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
  [37] http://www.astro.umd.edu/
  [38] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [39] https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html
  [40] https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/
  [41] https://www.nasa.gov/
  [42] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/
  [43] http://www.mtu.edu/
