Here is a set of galaxies that folks at the Space Telescope Science Institute are claiming look like a bowling ball and Star Trek starship. Imaged as part of Julianne Dalcanton and company’s interacting galaxies survey, two of these galaxies are clearly former spiral galaxies that are interacting and are now very disturbed systems. If you tilt your head and look just right, you may even say they look like the USS Enterprise.

And yes, researchers spend more time than we should admit to saying, “Hey, does this look like a _______ to you?”

The third galaxy, farther away, is nice and round, and while there are hints of gas coming off it, researchers remain unclear if this system is interacting with the other two – the Enterprise pair – or if it is just an innocent bystander. The research papers on this field are still in progress, and for now, all we have is an image release from NASA. It is an image we can all enjoy and that, like a movie preview, can get us – or at least me – excited about the full-length feature that is yet to come.

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NASA image release