Three galaxies collided 747 million years ago. It took that long for news to reach the Hubble Space Telescope, because they’re far away, and light travels only 186,000 miles per second.
A dramatic triplet of galaxies takes centre stage in this latest Picture of the Week from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, which captures a three-way gravitational tug-of-war between interacting galaxies. This system, known as Arp 195, is featured in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, a list which showcases some of the weirder and more wonderful galaxies in the universe.