In today's image, we see galaxies in the process of colliding. The collision will allow large gas clouds to merge and compress, causing star formation rates to increase. We see this in the many large, blue star cluster visible around the image. In a few hundred million years, the collision will have finished and we will have just a single, ordinary galaxy left behind.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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