Cosmic Bird

Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have discovered and imaged a stunning rare case of a triple merger of galaxies. This system, which astronomers have dubbed "The Bird".

The 'Bird' belongs to the prestigious family of luminous infrared galaxies, with an infrared luminosity nearly one thousand billion times that of the Sun. This family of galaxies has long been thought to signpost important events in galaxy evolution, such as mergers of galaxies, which in turn trigger bursts of star formation, and may eventually lead to the formation of a single elliptical galaxy.