Interacting galaxies as a research area focuses on the dynamical, hydrodynamical, and radiative processes that occur when galaxies experience mutual gravitational influence, including fly-bys, minor and major mergers, and tidal encounters. Studies combine N-body and hydrodynamical simulations with multiwavelength observations to investigate tidal tails, bridges, bars, and induced starbursts, as well as gas inflows, feedback, and morphological transformation. This field is central to understanding hierarchical structure formation, the build-up of stellar mass, triggering and regulation of active galactic nuclei, and environmental effects on galaxy evolution across cosmic time, often using statistically defined samples from large surveys alongside detailed case studies.
Astronomers have long debated the role of galaxy mergers in powering active supermassive black holes. Now an unprecedented dataset of a million galaxies from the Euclid telescope provides evidence that mergers play a dominant ...
Astronomy
Dec 2, 2025
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Astronomers know that mergers play a huge role in galaxy growth. Right now, the Milky Way is slowly consuming the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. The evidence is a stream of gas called the Magellanic Stream that's about ...
Astronomy
Nov 19, 2025
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67
In a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the international LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration reports on the detection of two gravitational wave events in October and November of 2024 with unusual black hole ...
Astronomy
Oct 28, 2025
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562
When galaxies collide, it's not a gentle affair, but it does take millions of years. Over this time, the two massive star systems slowly merge together, their gravitational pull drawing them closer. At the heart of each galaxy ...
Astronomy
Oct 13, 2025
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Researchers from The University of Western Australia node at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) have uncovered an immense structure, which spans an astonishing 185,000 light-years between galaxies ...
Astronomy
Sep 24, 2025
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A cosmic dance could be the future of the Milky Way as it tracks a course to collide with neighboring galaxies, a University of Queensland survey has found. The paper is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical ...
Astronomy
Aug 11, 2025
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By conducting multiwavelength observations with various telescopes and space observatories, astronomers from Tsinghua University and Steward Observatory have detected a galaxy pair exhibiting significant X-ray emission. The ...
Yale astronomer Pieter van Dokkum and a team of researchers have discovered an object in space they call the "Infinity" galaxy—two recently-collided galaxies that, together, look like the symbol for infinity.
Astronomy
Jul 15, 2025
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174
An international team of astronomers reports the detection of a peculiar merger of two similar ring galaxies that morphologically resemble an owl's face. The discovery of this galaxy merger, dubbed the "Cosmic Owl," is presented ...
For years, astronomers have predicted a dramatic fate for our galaxy: a head-on collision with Andromeda, our nearest large galactic neighbor. This merger—expected in about 5 billion years—has become a staple of astronomy ...
Astronomy
Jun 7, 2025
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