The Antennae Galaxies in Collision (July18, 2010)
The two galaxies are squaring off in Corvus which is a constellation in the southern hemisphere that is named for the crow, a bird associated with Apollo. It looks nothing like a crow but was named this because it was near the constellation Hydra. The probability of two stars within the galaxies colliding is almost 0. This is because even though there are an incredibly large number of stars in the galaxies, the density of stars is not very big since the galaxies are extremely big. In other words, the sizes of the stars are very small compared to the average distance between them. What can happen is that the large quantities of dust and gas within the galaxies can interact gravitationally. Also the galaxies can pull on the material in the other galaxies and disrupt their morphologies. There is also friction between the gas in the colliding galaxies, causing shock waves that can trigger some star formation in the galaxies. For example, two spiral galaxies can merge to form an elliptical galaxy.
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