NASA Hubble Telescope snaps image of two galaxies colliding that create a ghoulish face 

The  Hubble Telescope has spotted a ghoulish face in the depths of space.

NASA has released an image that highlights two galaxies colliding into each other 704 million light years way.

The ring of intense star formation shaped the nose and face features, while the glaring eyes are the two galaxies.

This ring will last for 100 million years and the galaxies will completely merge in about one to two billion years.

WHAT IS THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE?

The Hubble telescope was launched on April 24, 1990, via the space shuttle Discovery from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

It is named after famed astronomer Edwin Hubble who was born in Missouri in 1889.

He is arguably most famous for discovering that the universe is expanding and the rate at which is does so – now coined the Hubble constant. 

The Hubble telescope is named after famed astronomer Edwin Hubble who was born in Missouri in 1889 (pictured)

Hubble has made more than 1.3 million observations since its mission began in 1990 and helped publish more than 15,000 scientific papers.

It orbits Earth at a speed of about 17,000mph (27,300kph) in low Earth orbit at about 340 miles in altitude.

Hubble has the pointing accuracy of .007 arc seconds, which is like being able to shine a laser beam focused on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s head on a dime roughly 200 miles (320km) away.

The Hubble telescope is named after Edwin Hubble who was responsible for coming up with the Hubble constant and is one of the greatest astronomers of all-time

Hubble’s primary mirror is 2.4 meters (7 feet, 10.5 inches) across and in total is 13.3 meters (43.5 feet) long – the length of a large school bus.

Hubble’s launch and deployment in April 1990 marked the most significant advance in astronomy since Galileo’s telescope. 

Thanks to five servicing missions and more than 25 years of operation, our view of the universe and our place within it has never been the same. 

The event of ring galaxies are very rare and only a few hundred have every happened in our cosmic neighborhood.

In order for this to happen, the galaxies have to collide in just the right way for a ring to form.

However, galaxy collisions are common but most are not like the one that created this ‘ghoulish face’.

The crash pulled and stretched the galaxies’ discs of gas, dust, and stars outward, forming the ring of intense star formation that shapes the ‘nose’ and ‘face’ features of the system.

‘The side-by-side juxtaposition of the two central bulges of stars from the galaxies that we see here is also unusual,’ the ESA shared in a statement.

‘Since the bulges that form the ‘eyes’ appear to be the same size, we can be sure that the two galaxies involved in the crash were of equal size.’ 

‘This is different from the more common collisions in which small galaxies are gobbled up by their larger neighbors. ‘ 

The galaxy system has been labeled as  Arp-Madore 2026-424 (AM 2026-424) in the Arp-Madore ‘Catalogue of Southern Peculiar Galaxies and Associations’. 

Astronomer Halton Arp published his compendium of 338 unusual-looking interacting galaxies in 1966 and later partnered with astronomer Barry Madore to extend the search for galactic encounters in the southern sky — several thousand galaxies are listed in this survey.

Hubble (pictured) observed this unique system as part of a ‘snapshot’ program that takes advantage of occasional gaps in the telescope’s observing schedule to squeeze in additional pictures

Hubble observed this unique system as part of a ‘snapshot’ program that takes advantage of occasional gaps in the telescope’s observing schedule to squeeze in additional pictures.

Experts plan to use the Hubble program to get a better understanding of how galaxies interact with each other, with the goal of creating a giant sample.