File:NGC 0545 0547 NROA.jpg

Français : Les galaxie NGC 545 et NGC 547 en interaction. Le texte du NRAO: This image of the cluster of galaxies known as Abell 194 shows two radio galaxies shooting out huge, powerful jets of material from the regions surrounding the black holes at the galaxies' centers. These jets are visible in the radio data from the VLA telescope, shown in purple, overlaid on the color image of the cluster from the Lick Observatory 120-inch telescope. The jets from the interacting galaxies known as NGC 545 and NGC 547 (center left) extend for some 250,000 light years (one light year is around 6 trillion miles - the distance light travels in one year). The shorter jet from the galaxy NGC 541 (lower right) collides with a cloud of hydrogen gas, shown here in dark blue (also detected via its radio emission using the VLA). The pressure from the jet triggers the collapse of blobs of gas within this cloud, which form stars (seen in the light from excited hydrogen atoms, which are shown in this image as a light blue overlay from data from the 2.3-m telescope at Siding Spring in Australia). This unusual star forming system is known as Minkowski's Object, and is an example of black holes bringing new life (in the form of baby stars) to the Universe, when cosmic collisions between their outflowing jets and surrounding gas trigger the gas to collapse.