NASA: Hubble Space Telescope captures pair of merging galaxies in ancient universe

The Hubble Telescope, humanity's "eye in the sky," has taken breathtaking pictures over its many years of operation. Once again, the advanced equipment captured an image of a rare galaxy merger in the distant past. For the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA collaborated with its European counterpart, ESA (ESA). On Friday, astronomers shared the newest telescopic picture, which shows two galaxies in the process of merging.

Arp-Madore 417-391 is a galaxy merger that can be found in the constellation Eridanus, 671 million light-years distant. The image depicts two galaxies that have been warped and twisted into a ring because of the pull of gravity. As NASA explains it, the Arp-Madore catalogue is a smattering of odd galaxies throughout the southern sky that interact both softly and spectacularly with one another and with other galaxies.

Hubble's official Twitter account shared the image and wrote, ''Merge ahead. This #HubbleFriday image showcases the peculiar galaxy merger known as Arp-Madore 417-391.At 671 million light-years away, this merger is the result of two galaxies that were distorted by gravity and twisted together into a ring.’
The telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys captured this image, and the ESA has noted that the device was designed specifically to look for distant galaxies and clusters of galaxies.

"Hubble's ACS has been contributing to scientific discovery for 20 years, and throughout its lifetime it has been involved in everything from mapping the distribution of dark matter to studying the evolution of galaxy clusters," according to ESA.

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Merge ahead

This #HubbleFriday image showcases the peculiar galaxy merger known as Arp-Madore 417-391.

At 671 million light-years away, this merger is the result of two galaxies that were distorted by gravity and twisted together into a ring: https://t.co/Y5mWGbAAb8 pic.twitter.com/N87m2etW82

— Hubble (@NASAHubble) November 25, 2022

Hubble has previously captured some amazing pictures of the universe including the  breathtaking picture of Arp-Madore 608-333, a pair of interacting galaxies, in early October. The picture was taken as part of an effort to catalogue intriguing objects for further study by other ground-based observatories and the James Webb Space Telescope, which will replace Hubble in space.

For Hubble's survey, astronomers compiled a catalogue of unseen galaxies. Using this method, NASA claims, scientists may maximise the use of Hubble's limited viewing time to collect a diverse collection of galaxies throughout time.