NGC 7318

NGC 7318 (also known as UGC 12099/UGC 12100 or HCG 92d/b) is a pair of colliding galaxies about 280 million light-years from Earth.

[4] The Spitzer Space Telescope revealed the presence of a large intergalactic shock wave, shown by an arc produced by NGC 7318b colliding with the group at ≥ 900 km/sec.

The molecular hydrogen visible in the collision is one of the most turbulent forms known.

This phenomenon was discovered by an international team of scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK) in Heidelberg.

This collision can help provide a view into what happened in the early universe, around ten billion years ago.

The location of NGC 7318 (circled in blue)