NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured the image of two merging galaxies.
The European Space Agency detailed the galaxy, dubbed NGC 6052, in a news release NASA posted to its website.
Two become one in this awe-inspiring image of galaxies merging together. It was formed by two separate galaxies that gravity gradually pulled toward each other until they collided.
It has been classified as an abnormal single structure, but Hubble's recent stunning images have changed astronomers' theories.
It still has a "chaotic" shape because of the light from stars. But it will settle down into a stable shape eventually and will not resemble with either of the two original galaxies.
"Galaxy collisions happen throughout the universe", said Ka Chun Yu, Curator of Space Science at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
For now, these merging galaxies are going to look pretty chaotic as they crash and meld together to form one. In the end, NGC 6052 could look much different from the two merging galaxies that created it. The Milky Way itself is on a collision course with the Andromeda galaxy.
"It is in fact a "new" galaxy in the process of forming".
Hubble is the first major optical telescope placed in space, with an unobstructed view to provide scientists visibility of the most distant stars, galaxies and planets in the solar system. Since then, it has made many remarkable discoveries. The last explosion took place about 10 billion years ago. The images were caught by the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) of the Hubble.
