Image 6-15
Interacting Galaxies

In the direction of the constellation Canis Major, two spiral galaxies pass by each other like ships in the night. The near-collision has been caught in images taken from the Hubble Space Telescope. The larger and more massive galaxy on the left is known as NGC 2207, while the smaller one on the right is IC 2163. Strong tidal forces from NGC 2207 have distorted the shape of IC 2163, flinging out stars and gas into long streamers stretching out a hundred thousand light-years toward the right-hand edge of the image. These galaxies are located about 80 million light-years from Earth.