Bright Companions

Two galaxies form a brilliant pairing in this recent Hubble Space Telescope image. The beautiful spiral galaxy is NGC 4627, while the giant elliptical galaxy that dominates the image is M60. The glare that surrounds M60's center is actually the faint light of hundreds of billions of stars, which extend several hundred thousand light-years from the galaxy's core. Hubble observations suggest the two galaxies may be drawing close enough to each other to begin to interact. [NASA/ESA]