An award winning image shows an ongoing galactic battle – an entire galaxy being torn apart because it drifted too close to its neighbour around 200 million light years away.

The arms of the spiral galaxy, spanning billions of miles, are being bent out of shape in a giant celestial wrestling match due to the massive forces of gravity generated by a neighbouring galaxy.

NASA’s Hubble Telescope captured the incredible scene, where gravity twisted the starburst galaxy’s spiral arms out of shape and triggered bright bursts of exploding stars – which has now been painstakingly recoloured by an astrophotographer.

NGC 7714 is a spiral galaxy located 100 million light-years from Earth – making it a relatively close neighbour in cosmic terms.

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NGC 7714: Starburst after Galaxy Collision

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Legacy Archive;
Processing & Copyright: Rudy Pohl pic.twitter.com/rEDtMa8TRn

— 𝓗𝓸𝓵𝓸𝓰𝓻𝓪𝓹𝓱𝓲𝓬 𝓟𝓻𝓲𝓷𝓬𝓲𝓹𝓵𝓮 (@MarkInTheCosmos) October 10, 2019