Friday, April 25, 2008

When Galaxies Collide


Okay, this is not Arizona geology, but these photos are just too amazing to let go by. Phil Plait who blogs at Bad Astronomy (one of the best science blogs by far and from whom I stole the title of this posting) describes clearly and simply what's going on in many of the photos here. The whole set of 59 colliding galaxies can be found at the Hubble site.

The photos were released in celebration of the Hubble telescope launch 18 years ago yesterday. I had the incredible fortune to not only be at the launch in 1990, but to be sitting in the VIP section, closest to the launch pad, at the invitation of geologist-astronaut Kathy Sullivan, who was on the space shuttle crew.

Happy birthday, Hubble!

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