• Question: What is the largest number of galaxies that have collided at one time?

    Asked by to Nat, Nate, Roberto, Sam, Sarah on 23 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Sam Connolly

      Sam Connolly answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      The largest number that anyone has found so far is four! It’s a cluster of galaxies called CL0958+4702. It’s extremely unusual, because it’s quite hard to find galaxies which are merging at all, and it’s almost always only two, so it’s pretty amazing to find four!

    • Photo: Natasha Stephen

      Natasha Stephen answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      I didn’t know that! You learn something new every day! 🙂

    • Photo: Sarah Casewell

      Sarah Casewell answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      Me either! Thanks to Nate I also know what the biggest star we’ve found is!

    • Photo: Roberto Trotta

      Roberto Trotta answered on 25 Jun 2014:

      If we are talking about BIG COLLISIONS, then nothing can beat the Bullet Cluster.

      This is a high-speed collision of thousands of galaxies, which also reveals the dark matter between them. Dark matter is invisible, but its presence can be worked out by looking at the effect that it has on the light travelling through the Bullet Cluster.

      It’s actually quite impressive, check out this picture:

      There are about 6 examples of such big collisions of thousands of galaxies at the time.

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