The Hubble Space Telescope has shared an archival image of a pair of galaxies, NGC 3314, which intersect in the photo. In fact, they are separated by tens of millions of light years. NASA writes about this, UNN reports .
Details
The accidental alignment of the two galaxies in perspective, as seen from Earth, gives a unique look to the silhouetted spiral arms in the closer spiral galaxy.
The distance between the galaxies is ten times greater than the distance between our Milky Way galaxy and the neighboring Andromeda.
The motion of the two galaxies shows that both are moving in markedly different directions. That is, they are not on a collision course.
The distorted shape of NGC 3314A is likely due to a convergence with another neighboring galaxy, possibly the large spiral galaxy NGC 3312, which is not visible in the Hubble image.