The Hubble Space Telescope recently sent out a pair of pretty image releases. 

In this first picture, we are looking at just part of an amazing image of the Hickson Compact Group 31 — a small system of tightly bound together galaxies. In this image, we see two galaxies appearing as one mashup of gas and dust decorated with bursts of star formation. To their right is another lineup of stars and gas that are almost separate, save for a bridge of star formation. These three galaxies will eventually merge into one system, but that will be far, far in the future.

Oh, and that pretty spiral? That’s just an unrelated background system.

You can see this image and all the images in this episode on our website DailySpace.org.

As much as many of us tend to focus on beautiful spiral galaxies, the reality is that distorted systems and giant blobs are out there being awesome in their own right and deserve our attention.

In this second Hubble release, we see the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 474. It is 2.5 times wider than our own galaxy and is the culmination of multiple systems merging together. Researchers think the shell-like structures in this image are leftover structures from a merger that sent ripples through the system — sort of like how a pebble sends ripples through water.

These kinds of delicate structures are generally only found in isolated systems. In the crowded regions of galaxy clusters, shells don’t survive. This system’s ghostly beauty is really a reflection of galaxies merging to become one and then carrying on in lonely isolation.

More Information

NASA Goddard “String of Stars” image release

NASA Goddard “Layered Gas” image release