Galaxy collisions do not destroy stars, though this might seem to contradict conventional wisdom, not to mention storylines in countless Hollywood blockbusters. In fact, according to researchers, the rough-and-tumble dynamics trigger new generations of stars, and presumably accompanying planets.
Since its launch into low Earth orbit in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has gathered dozens of terabytes of data, including a multitude of interstellar images, providing invaluable information for astronomers like Western University's Sarah Gallagher.
Hubble, one of the most productive and versatile space telescopes ever deployed, zeroed in on 12 interacting galaxies that have long, tadpole-like tidal tails' of gas, dust and a plethora of stars. The telescope's exquisite sharpness and sensitivity to ultraviolet light uncovered 425 clusters of newborn stars along these tails, which look like strings of pearls. Each cluster contains as many as 1 million newborn stars. The most massive of these outshine all the others, and glow with blue light.
Clusters in tidal tails have been known about for decades, but scientifically dating them is a relatively new pursuit for the space science community.
