This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope depicts two overlapping spiral galaxies. His two galaxies, boringly named SDSS J115331 and LEDA 2073461, are more than a billion light years away from Earth. Although they appear to be colliding in this image, the alignment of the two galaxies is likely a coincidence and the two galaxies are not actually interacting. These two galaxies may simply be ships passing by at night, but the Hubble Space Telescope has historically captured a dazzling array of interacting galaxies.
This image is one of his many Hubble observations covering highlights of the Galactic Zoo project. First established in 2007, the Galaxy Zoo project and its successors are large-scale citizen science projects collecting galaxy classifications from a pool of hundreds of thousands of volunteers. These volunteers are often the first to categorize galaxies imaged by robotic telescopes and set their sights on celestial bodies.
During the course of the original Galaxy Zoo project, a volunteer discovered a zoo of strange and wonderful galaxies, including his anomalous three-armed spiral galaxy and colliding ring galaxies. The astronomers coordinating the project requested Hubble time to observe the Galactic Zoo's most unusual residents, but true to the project's crowdsourcing roots, the list of targets was chosen by public vote.
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