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Discover the cosmos! Each day we feature a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

August 31, 1995
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Distant Galaxies
Credit: NASA, Bill Keel (University of Alabama)

Explanation: This Hubble Space Telescope image of a group of faint galaxies "far, far away" is a snap shot of the Universe when it was very young. The bluish, irregularly shaped galaxies revealed in the image are up to eight billion light years away and seem to have commonly undergone galaxy collisions and bursts of star formation. Studying these objects is difficult because they are so faint, however they may provide clues to how our own Milky Way Galaxy formed.

Tomorrow's picture: Hot Gas and Dark Matter

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Astronomy Picture of the Day (TM) is created and copyrighted in 1995 by Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell who are solely responsible for its content.

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