The image from the Hubble Space Telescope this week shows a pair of interacting galaxies, which are close enough that they are affecting each other, with the tidal interactions of the two pulling on the tails of the larger galaxy. The two galaxies have the same name.
Hubble scientists write that the two galaxies are 200 million light-years from Earth. There is a bright ring of star clusters and an active, supermassive black hole in the area.
The new Hubble image shows the same pair of galaxies that have been seen before. The previous image was taken using Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, but the new one combines data from both Hubble instruments. This camera was installed in 2009, and adds additional filters to the image to pick out more details over three observations, as opposed to the three filters used in the previous image.
There will soon be even more detailed images of this pair available, as they will be a target for investigation by the James Webb Space Telescope this summer. Some of the first science observations will be to investigate the cores of merging galaxies, which are hidden behind a veil of dust in the visible light wavelength. The dust will allow the instruments to peer through it to learn more about how stars form.
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