Hubble has been sending Earth some epic photos. What a difference between 1997 and 2015!
Galaxies crash into each other in space. Here's why you should care.
Space. It's easy to think of it as this static entity, a quiet vacuum, that never really changes save for the occasional shooting star...
Image via Eric E. Castro/Flickr.
...but really, there's a lot of drama happening.
The scrappy Hubble telescope's new camera system, which includes the Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys, is ready to blow the lid on all the space drama.
Hubble recently sent Earth one of the most detailed space photos of the Twin Jet Nebula, a binary star system that also goes by the name of PN M2-9.
Watch as 1997 turns in to 2015, with all the awesome color spectrum to go along with it. With new technology comes better images and better access and better understanding of space drama!
1997:
2015:
Is this a lava lamp? No, it's real life.
Then there's the NGC 6240. It's two galaxies and two black holes that are joining together to form an even bigger black hole (and possibly a bigger galaxy).
Seven years ago it was all browns and blues...
...now it's all detailed with pinks and purples! The folks at Hubble say it looks like a lobster.
This is what two black holes joining into a black hole look like. Lobster!
Whoa!
What a plot twist.
Will this lobster-esque galaxy collision be galactic cannibalism, which is an actual satisfactual scientific term describing situations where the colliding galaxies actually eat each other?!
Or will it be more like galaxy harassment, where one galaxy pretty dramatically flies into another? They are two black holes colliding ... so stay tuned.
Or is it all just a galaxy dance, where all the stars are Martha Graham-ing their way towards a new beginning? That's not a scientific term, but I do like to think about it.
Much like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, some great stars are just destined to meet.
They grow closer with each passing year! Image via Georges Biard/Wikimedia Commons.
And the reality is, even our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is destined to collide with the Andromeda galaxy in about 5 billion years.
