In the depths of space, huge objects can collide. Clouds of dust and debris from each galaxy can cause a storm of star formation when they collide with one another.
The Hubble Space Telescope snapped this image of the merger of two galaxys. Located 520 million light-years from Earth, the two galaxies have become so entwined that they are considered one object.
The merger was spotted by volunteers. To create a catalog of galaxy types, members of the public were invited to help comb through Hubble data and classify different types of galaxies.
The European Space Agency writes that the project started when an astronomer was given an impossible task. Within six months a legion of 100,000 volunteer citizen astronomer had contributed more than 40 million galaxy classifications after the team made a web interface and invited citizen scientists to help.
The project has expanded to include different types of objects since it began in 2007. More than 100 scientific journal articles have been contributed to and inspired by it on the Zooniverse platform.
After many galaxies had been classified, a public vote was held to decide which of these objects should be seen in more detail. The image was created by using the Advanced Camera for Surveys instrument on Hubble.
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