Galactic pile-up! Astronomers discover a cluster of 14 colliding galaxies

The ALMA telescope in Chile has revealed that a smudge of light originally spotted in 2010 is actually a cluster of 14 galaxies, which will eventually merge and become the largest structure in the universe.

From Science Daily:

Pretty cool.

This USA Today article features an “artist impression” of the cluster, in which the galaxies are depicted in contrasting attractive colors. :smiley:

They’re not “colliding”, they’re trying to invent astrorugby.

Of course the kicker is that we are seeing light from this event from 12.4 billion years ago, so everything has already happened and evolved from there; we just have to stick around another few billion years to see what’s already happened…

What terrible intersection design. Must be a new roundabout.

I assume the insurance claims are in by now. :dubious:

This just in: President Trump states that he is already expanding the Milky Way into a galaxy waaaayyyy huger than that one. He is quoted as saying, “Believe him.”

I kinda want to say that the most massive object in the universe is really YOUR MOM, but I think XKCD might have already made that joke.

The check should be going out next week.