Violent Galactic Clash May Solve Cosmic Mystery

astroengine writes "The mother of all cosmic collisions has been spotted between two galaxies containing a total of 400 billion stars, igniting the birth of 2,000 new stars per year! This incredible event was first spotted by the recently-retired Herschel infrared space observatory (abstract), a mission managed by the European Space Agency. This violent discovery isn't just awesome to look at, it could also help explain how massive, red elliptical galaxies evolved in the early universe."

Comments

Re:Think of the aliens

[osu-neko]

Most likely none. When galaxies "collide", they merge gravitationally, but stars don't run into one another. Thing of how small a star is compared to the vast space between them. The odds of two stars colliding are so small, even when you have literally billions of them heading towards one another, the odds of a collision are extremely remote.