Soft shells and strange star clusters
Thursday, October 10, 2013 - 09:00
in Astronomy & Space
The beautiful, petal-like shells of galaxy PGC 6240 are captured here in intricate detail by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, set against a sky full of distant background galaxies. This cosmic bloom is of great interest to astronomers due to both its uneven structure, and the unusual clusters of stars that orbit around it -- two strong indications of a galactic merger in the recent past.