Topic: Quasar Pair Captured in Galaxy Collision

[sam]

A Chandra X-ray Observatory image shows a pair of quasars in blue, located about 4.6 billion light years away, but separated on the sky by only about 70 thousand light years. These bright sources, collectively called SDSS J1254+0846, are powered by material falling onto supermassive black holes. An optical image from the Baade-Magellan telescope in Chile, in yellow, shows tidal tails - gravitational-stripped streamers of stars and gas -- fanning out from the two colliding galaxies.

http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2010/sdss/

WOW! I love looking at colliding galaxies... and then just think how large they are, how many stars are there and how much energy is being exchanged... hmmm now I recall why I wanted to be an astronomer.

[Clive]

That's an incredible photo!  Yes colliding galaxies are one of the greatest spectacles of the cosmos.