I gotta say, this is one of the most beautiful pictures I’ve seen all year ! This amazing image released by NASA shows a collision betweet two galaxies that began 100 million years ago (when dinosaurs were still kings) and is still happening today. The bright sources you see are in fact produced by huge amounts of material that falls on black holes and neutron stars (remnants of massive stars).

Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/J.DePasquale; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Optical: NASA/STScI

Enjoyed this article? Join 40,000+ subscribers to the ZME Science newsletter. Subscribe now!