Astronomy Picture of the Day [1]Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2020 December 3 [2]See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available. The Antennae Galaxies in Collision Image Credit: [3]ESA/Hubble [4]NASA Explanation: Sixty million light-years away toward the southerly constellation Corvus, these [5]two large galaxies are colliding. The cosmic train wreck captured in stunning detail in this [6]Hubble Space Telescope snapshot takes hundreds of millions of years to play out. Cataloged as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, the galaxies' individual stars don't often collide though. Their large clouds of molecular gas and dust do, triggering furious episodes of star formation near the center of the wreckage. New star clusters and interstellar matter are jumbled and flung far from the scene of the accident by gravitational forces. This Hubble close-up frame is about 50,000 light-years across at the estimated distance of the colliding galaxies. In wider-field views their suggestive visual appearance, with extended structures arcing for hundreds of thousands of light-years, gives the galaxy pair its popular name, [7]The Antennae Galaxies. Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space __________________________________________________________________ [8]< | [9]Archive | [10]Submissions | [11]Index | [12]Search | [13]Calendar | [14]RSS | [15]Education | [16]About APOD | [17]Discuss | [18]> __________________________________________________________________ Authors & editors: [19]Robert Nemiroff ([20]MTU) & [21]Jerry Bonnell ([22]UMCP) NASA Official: Phillip Newman [23]Specific rights apply. [24]NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices A service of: [25]ASD at [26]NASA / [27]GSFC & [28]Michigan Tech. U. References 1. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 2. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2012/AntennaeGpotw1345a_2048.jpg 3. https://spacetelescope.org/ 4. https://www.nasas.gov/ 5. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120604.html 6. https://spacetelescope.org/images/potw1345a/ 7. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170428.html 8. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap201202.html 9. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 10. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/apsubmit2015.html 11. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/aptree.html 12. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search 13. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html 14. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod.rss 15. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/edlinks.html 16. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html 17. http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=201203 18. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap201204.html 19. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html 20. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/ 21. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html 22. http://www.astro.umd.edu/ 23. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply 24. https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html 25. https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 26. https://www.nasa.gov/ 27. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ 28. http://www.mtu.edu/