Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University)

IC 4687 forms a triplet with two other galaxies: IC 4686 to the right and IC 4689 further to the right. IC 4687 has a chaotic body of stars, gas and dust and a large curly tail to the left. The two companions are partially obscured by dark bands of dust. The interacting triplet is about 250 million light-years away from Earth, in the constellation of Pavo, the Peacock. This image is part of a large collection of 59 images of merging galaxies taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released on the occasion of its 18th anniversary on 24th April 2008.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0810ca/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License