The people have spoken. An on-line vote has decided that NASA’s Hubble space telescope will turn its attention to a pair of colliding galaxies according to USA Today.
“Out of a total of 139,944 votes cast online by the public since the “Hubble, You Decide” contest opened on January 28, nearly 50 percent favored the interacting pair of spiral galaxies called Arp 274,” said a Space Telescope Science Institute statement.
The gravitationally-bound galaxies beat out five other starry candidates for investigation in early April, part of worldwide International Year of Astronomy observing activities. “Hubble has shown that interacting galaxies are very photogenic because, under the relentless pull of gravity, they weave elegant twisted lanes of dust and stars, and brilliant blue clusters of newborn stars,” says the Hubble statement. A color image should be released by the evening of April 5, showing the galaxies.
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