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A Hubble Space Telescope image shows unprecedented detail of the Antennae galaxies, an intense star-forming region created when two galaxies began to collide some 200 million to 300 million years ago. The bright, blue-white areas show newly formed stars surrounded by clouds of hydrogen, which are colored pink. A similar collision is expected between our galaxy, the Milky Way, and the nearby Andromeda galaxy in several billion years.

A face-on view of the Messier 74 galaxy shows billions of stars forming within its spiral arms. The clusters of blue are young stars, and the pink areas indicate concentrations of ionized hydrogen. Messier 74 is home to about a hundred billion stars, slightly fewer than the Milky Way has, and sits near the constellation Pisces some 32 million light-years away.

This image of the Whirlpool galaxy shows the classic features of a spiral galaxy: curving outer arms where newborn stars reside and a yellowish central core, home to older stars. A companion galaxy called NGC 5195, seen here at the tip of one of Whirlpool's arms (right), has been passing by for hundreds of millions of years and exerting gravitational forces on its larger neighbour.

A Hubble Space Telescope image shows unprecedented detail of the Antennae galaxies, an intense star-forming region created when two galaxies began to collide some 200 million to 300 million years ago. The bright, blue-white areas show newly formed stars surrounded by clouds of hydrogen, which are coloured pink. A similar collision is expected between our galaxy, the Milky Way, and the nearby Andromeda galaxy in several billion years.