What Happens When Galaxies Collide? Hubble Space Telescope Finds New Surprises

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May 25, 1993: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has discovered a new population of exceptionally bright and young star clusters at the heart of a head-on collision between two galaxies. The orbiting telescope also discovered a rotating, pinwheel-shaped disk at the center of the collision. In the Hubble photo, the disk resembles a full spiral galaxy, seen face on. Yet the disk is only ten thousand light-years across, about 1/20 the diameter of the whole galaxy.

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