Zen’s Carl Sagen post made me go and find this for you, here’s what NASA have to say about it
A beautiful new image of two colliding galaxies has been released by NASA’s Great Observatories. The Antennae galaxies, located about 62 million light years from Earth, are shown in this composite image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), the Hubble Space Telescope (gold), and the Spitzer Space Telescope (red).
The collision, which began more than 100 million years ago and is still occurring, has triggered the formation of millions of stars in clouds of dusts and gas in the galaxies. The most massive of these young stars have already sped through their evolution in a few million years and exploded as supernovas.
The X-ray image from Chandra shows huge clouds of hot, interstellar gas that have been injected with rich deposits of elements from supernova explosions. This enriched gas, which includes elements such as oxygen, iron, magnesium and silicon, will be incorporated into new generations of stars and planets. The bright, point-like sources in the image are produced by material falling onto black holes and neutron stars that are remnants of the massive stars. Some of these black holes may have masses that are almost one hundred times that of the Sun.
The Spitzer data show infrared light from warm dust clouds that have been heated by newborn stars, with the brightest clouds lying in the overlap region between the two galaxies. The Hubble data reveal old stars in red, filaments of dust in brown and star-forming regions in yellow and white. Many of the fainter objects in the optical image are clusters containing thousands of stars.
The Antennae galaxies take their name from the long antenna-like “arms,” seen in wide-angle views of the system. These features were produced by tidal forces generated in the collision.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Truly a ‘War of the Worlds.’
So pretty, almost unreal.
They should make presidents and politicians study this – it should make them realise their true insignificance in the larger scheme of things.
OZ
Sort of knocks the creationists into a cocked hat doesn’t it.
There is a guy who goes down the sports club who chat to, a nice guy even though he is a religious type, some sort of American group, who refuses to accept that the world is more than 6000 years old.
Mention dinosaurs and fossils and he says they are all fake.
“62 million light years from Earth” is frankly a bit like infinity as a concept. It’s quite unimaginable.
Certainly puts us in our place though.
Super picture and text.
You say the collision caused the formation of millions of stars. For me, the picture looks like a foetus in the womb.
Is there anybody out there?
Pictures like this guarantee a read from me – they are truly awe-inspiring.