Thursday, September 23, 2010

What happens when galaxies collide?

When two nearby galaxies attracted to each other by their gravitational force (a relatively common event in galaxy evolution), their gases collide violently. As gas and dust smash together at speeds of millions of miles an hour, they combine the raw materials for new born stars in an amazing hot and bright display, and eventually -in some cases- causes a super massive black hole from this collision.