difficult to say collision or not.

• by stuart_thomas

  The central galaxy looks generally spheroidal. The lower galaxy may be impacting the central galaxy but the image is not clear enough to tell. It may be that the arm of the lower is simply overlying the central galaxy. There is no significant distortion and there does not appear to be any large star formation regions you might expect from such a close collision of large galaxies.
  It is tempting to say that these are both spiral galaxies colliding, but the central galaxy doesn't show enough detail to make such a determination in my view. There does seem to be an obvious 2 arm spiral to the lower galaxy.
  Both galaxies are generally reddened which suggests great distance and age, both cores are significantly brighter/denser than their outer disk/halo of stars.

  Posted April 15, 2015 8:04 PM