Back in March the powers in charge of the mighty Hubble space telescope let the public vote on what it should take its next pictures of.

The public voted for an interacting pair of spiral galaxies called Arp274 about 400 million light-years away. Unlike NASA, which refused to honour a recent vote on space station names, the Hubble team respected the public vote.

According to the press site:

Arp 274, also known as NGC 5679, is a system of three galaxies that appear to be partially overlapping in the image, although they may be at somewhat different distances. The spiral shapes of two of these galaxies appear mostly intact. The third galaxy (to the far left) is more compact, but shows evidence of star formation.

Two of the three galaxies are forming new stars at a high rate. This is evident in the bright blue knots of star formation that are strung along the arms of the galaxy on the right and along the small galaxy on the left.

See also: A final trip to Hubble – April 01

Image: NASA, ESA, M. Livio and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)