03 March 2005

Like an unsuspecting kid on a playground, a distant galaxy is walking into certain disaster as it approaches a gang of other galaxies.

Already the interaction is forcing abundant star formation in the small galaxy, named NGC 1427A. Ultimately, it will be ripped apart, scientists said Thursday.

An image of the scene was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. The scene is 62 million light-years away.

The Fornax galaxy contains hundreds of galaxies. Gas between galaxies is compressed as NGC 1427A rushes toward crowd at about 400 miles per second (600 kilometers per second). The compression forces star formation, as evidenced by numerous hot, blue stars that have been formed very recently, astronomers said.

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http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/hubble_destruction_050303.html