The Hubble Space Telescope captures an interacting galaxy system known as Arp-Madore 2105-332. NASA/ESA released the image of Arp-Madore 2105-332 on December 11, 2023.
The interacting galaxy system Arp-Madore 2105-332 is located about 200 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Microscopium. Arp-Madore (AM) is a catalogue of peculiar galaxies.
Interaction of galaxies (galactic cannibalism, galactic merger) are very common in our universe. Large galaxies cannibalise smaller ones and galactic mergers occur between roughly equal-sized galaxies.
Our Milky Way galaxy is currently cannibalizing its satellite galaxies and stealing their stars. Not only that, billions of years from now, our galaxy will collide and merge with the nearest neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy, eventually forming a larger galaxy.
Here, a pair of interacting galaxies is seen. The right one is smaller than the left. Each of the galaxies has bright centres. Materials (dust and stars) of the interacting galaxies are flowing through their spiral arms though the individual stars are not seen.
Three smaller galaxies are also seen, which are aligned in a vertical line below the left member of the interacting galaxies. However, these three smaller galaxies are not associated with the interacting galaxy system Arp-Madore 2105–332.
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