News in Brief Astronomy

Galaxy’s petal-like structures came from collision

A cosmic crash of two huge masses of stars, gas and dust probably gave way to structure of star clusters

GETTING SLAMMED  The concentric shells of PGC 6240 (shown) and the young star clusters that orbit it may have formed when the galaxy smashed into another one.

Judy Schmidt/Hubble’s Hidden Treasures, Hubble, ESA, NASA

By Ashley Yeager

- More than 2 years ago

Not too long ago, galaxy PGC 6240, shown in a Hubble Space Telescope image, probably slammed into another huge swirl of stars, gas and dust.