Celestial firework marks nearest galaxy collision

A spectacular galaxy collision has been discovered lurking behind the Milky Way. The closest such system ever found, the discovery was announced today by a team of astronomers led by Prof. Quentin Parker at the University of Hong-Kong and Prof. Albert Zijlstra at the University of Manchester. The scientists publish their results in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.  Colour image of the collision, made by combining the CTIO H-alpha image with red and blue images. Credit: Ivan Bo...