Hubble Ultra Deep Field

The three galaxies just below center are enmeshed in battle, their shapes distorted by the brutal encounter

This image reveals an edge-on spiral galaxy fending off a weirdly shaped blue galaxy.

The area in this image is littered with encounters between galaxies that have been shredded by the interactions.

This large bright spiral is one of the nearest galaxies; it thrived 1 billion years ago, when the cosmos was 13 billion years old.

These oddball galaxies chronicle a period when the universe was younger and more chaotic. Order and structure were just beginning to emerge.