The cosmic dance of the colliding galaxies

The Universe is filled with millions of galaxies of various shape, types and sizes. These galaxies are not fixed in one place. They are travelling through space. Like two vehicles zooming past each other, galaxies meet other galaxies, big or small.

And sometimes they collide!

The collision of galaxies may not be a catastrophic event as movie would have us believe. The collision can be a beautiful cosmic dance!.

Photo of such a cosmic dance has been captured. It is a collision between a barred spiral galaxy and a lenticular galaxy. These two galaxies are merging to form a single galaxy. As they swirl around each other, both of them are affecting one another.

NGC 1512, the galaxy in the middle of the picture, is larger of the two galaxies. It is a barred spiral type of galaxy. NGC 1510, is a smaller lenticular (lens-like) galaxy which can be seen in lower right part of the image. 

Both of these galaxies are located in the direction of the constellation Horologium. The pair is about 60 million light-years away from Earth.

The photo of these two colliding galaxies and their cosmic dance has been taken by Victor M Blanco 4-meter telescope in Chile in South America.