The famous Hubble Space Telescope of NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) has immortalized the tumultuous merger of three galaxies in the constellation of Cancer, 681 million light years from Earth: entwined between clusters of dust and bright whirlpools of stars, they will give rise to a daughter galaxy that will bear the scars of this cosmic collision.
The image was obtained by pointing Hubble's powerful Advanced Camera for Surveys (Acs) at some bizarre galaxies identified thanks to the citizen science project 'Galaxy Zoo', the largest census of galaxies ever examined before (as many as 900,000) carried out by over 100,000 volunteers.
Thanks to their dedication, in 175 days, results were obtained that would have required years of work for an astronomer.
Among the most interesting cosmic objects identified was IC 2431, which later turned out to be the set of three colliding galaxies.
In the image captured by Hubble we see a violent mixing of stars in formation and distortions due to the gravitational interactions taking place in the 'trio'.
In the center there is also a dense cloud of dust, while the light of a galaxy in the background peeks out at the ends.
