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Galaxies Everywhere
Featured on July 25, 2020
Hundreds of galaxies populate this view of the Hercules galaxy cluster, which is about 500 million light-years from Earth. The system includes a high proportion of interacting galaxies -- two or more galaxies that are close enough for their gravity to affect the shape and evolution of each galaxy. The interactions can pull great streamers of stars out into space, while causing vast gas clouds to collapse to give birth to tens of thousands of new stars. Some of the interactions will result in mergers, with two or more galaxies forming a single giant galaxy. [ESO/INAF-VST/OmegaCAM. Acknowledgement: OmegaCen/Astro-WISE/Kapteyn Institute]
