Closeup of Antennae Galaxy Collision

It's a clash of the titans. Two galaxies are squaring off in Corvus and here are the latest pictures. When two galaxies collide , however, the stars that compose them usually do not. This is because galaxies are mostly empty space and, however bright, stars only take up only a small amount of that space. But during the slow, hundred million year collision , one galaxy can rip the other apart gravitationally, and dust and gas common to both galaxies does collide. In the above wreckage , dark dust pillars mark massive molecular clouds, which are being compressed during the galactic encounter , causing the rapid birth of millions of stars .