Galaxy AM 1054-325

Galaxy AM 1054-325 has been distorted into an S-shape from a normal pancake-like spiral shape by the gravitational pull of a neighboring galaxy, seen in this Hubble Space Telescope image. A consequence of this is that newborn clusters of stars form along a stretched-out tidal tail for thousands of light-years, resembling a string of pearls. They form when knots of gas gravitationally collapse to create about 1 million newborn stars per cluster.

About the colours

These images are a composite of separate exposures acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope using the WFPC2 and WFC3 instruments. Several filters were used to sample broad wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Magenta: F336W, Cyan: F435W, Green: F606W, Red: F814W

About the data

This image was created with Hubble data from proposals: 11134 (K. Knierman) and 14937 (M. Rodruck).