January 3, 2016

The galaxy NGC 6052 photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope (Image ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt)

NGC 6052 is a galaxy apparently abnormal because of its odd shape. It was initially classified in that way but later astronomers realized that it’s actually the result of an ongoing merger of two galaxies with similar masses. The Hubble space telescope was used to take a picture of NGC 6052 with its Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), which includes observations in visible and ultraviolet light.