Sometimes it's tempting to imagine a supernatural hand behind the arrangement of celestial bodies.
As astronomers study interacting galaxies in more detail, they're uncovering athat they call"intergalactic star-forming objects" ISFOs are a broad class of objects that capture the different types that form when galaxies interact.
ISFOs can range in mass from super star clusters to what astronomers call"tidal dwarf galaxies" A 2012 paper based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey estimated that about 6 percent of dwarf galaxies could have tidal origins. Sometimes material from the tidal streams will flow back into the galaxies, triggering more star formation. The leftover material from all this interaction enriches the interstellar medium with dust and metals.
Astronomers now think that about 25 percent of galaxies are currently merging with other galaxies. Even more of them are interacting gravitationally, if not merging, according to the Harvard Center for Astrophysics.
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