These are some of the 59 new images of colliding galaxies that make up the largest collection of Hubble images ever released together by NASA. As this astonishing Hubble atlas of interacting galaxies illustrates, galaxy collisions produce a remarkable variety of intricate structures. Interacting galaxies are found throughout the Universe, sometimes as dramatic collisions that trigger bursts of star formation, on other occasions as stealthy mergers that result in new galaxies. The series of images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope was released April 24, 2008, to mark the 18th anniversary of the telescope's launch. Each of the various merging galaxies in this series of images is a snapshot of a different instant in the long interaction process.

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