Monster Galaxy Pileup Sighted

Mega-merger in space. Rectangles show the four galaxies and the plume of tossed-out stars; the square shows another galaxy in the cluster, and the ellipse shows the extent of the “plume” or diffuse stars not visible in this image. False-color image of CL0958m, combining WIYN r-band image in blue, Spitzer IRAC 3.6µm image in green, IRAC 4.5µm image in red. (Courtesy of Ken Rines) Four galaxies are slamming into each other and kicking up billions of stars in one of the largest cosmic smash-ups ever observed.