Hubble Space Telescope Captures Galaxy Interactions

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has recently captured stunning images of various celestial objects, including notable lensed quasars and interacting galaxies. HE0435-1223, WFI2033-4723, and HE1104-1805 are among the top five lensed quasars identified, showcasing the phenomenon of gravitational lensing where a foreground galaxy creates multiple images of a distant quasar. In the Coma Berenices constellation, the galaxy pair MCG+05-31-045, located 390 million light-years away, is part of a rich cluster housing over a thousand galaxies, predominantly elliptical, formed through interactions and collisions. These interactions disrupt the gas necessary for star formation, leading to aging stars and eventually resulting in elliptical galaxies. Astronomers predict that MCG+05-31-045 will undergo significant changes as the smaller spiral galaxy merges into the larger one, which will further influence star formation dynamics over millions of years. The ongoing observations by Hubble continue to reveal the complex interactions and evolution of galaxies in our universe.