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Rodents of Unusual Size 🐭⁣ ⁣ These twin galaxies are nicknamed “The Mice” due to their long tails of stars and gas stretching hundreds of thousands of light-years, due to gravitational forces likely from their last encounter approximately 160 million years ago. The galaxies will eventually merge, in about a billion years, into a single massive elliptical galaxy after colliding several times. The collision of The Mice may presage the eventual collision between Andromeda and our own galaxy, the Milky Way.⁣ ⁣ @NASAHubble captured this view of the pair, located 300 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices, with its Advanced Camera for Surveys in blue, orange, and near-infrared filters. This image shows the most detail and the most stars ever seen in these galaxies; above the left galaxy, a bright blue patch contains a cascade of clusters of young, hot, blue stars.⁣ ⁣ Image description: Surrounded by black space dotted by small stars and galaxies, The Mice appear in blue, white, and brown in the center of the photo, connected with a smaller blue trail connecting them and large blue trail heading toward the upper-right part of the image.⁣ ⁣ Credit: NASA, H. Ford (JHU), G. Illingworth (UCSC/LO), M.Clampin (STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), the ACS Science Team, and @EuropeanSpaceAgency⁣ ⁣ #Mice #Mouse #PrincessBride #NASA #Space #Hubble #Galaxy #ESA #stars #galaxies #AsYouWish