"Contrary to what you might think, galaxy collisions do not destroy stars. In fact, the rough-and-tumble dynamics trigger new generations of stars, and presumably accompanying planets," Hubble Space Telescope officials wrote in a description published alongside the new image on Thursday.
This tells astronomers that tails make new stars very efficiently. Like with shelf-stable flour, molecular hydrogen in these galaxies was lying inert. But with enough heat, pressure, and the right recipe, this ingredient could easily turn into something exciting.
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