Terrible twins

You might not think it, your feet bound to the Earth, but gravity is the weakest of the four fundamental forces of nature. However, despite being overpowered by the electromagnetic force, and the strong and weak nuclear forces, gravity is able to win-out at the end of the day thanks to its incredibly long-range. Here, in this Hubble Space Telescope image, we see how gravity’s tendrils have reached out from one galaxy to another, twisting and deforming them. Located 250 million light years away in the constellation of Draco, the Dragon, this pair of galaxies are referred to as NGC 6285 (on the left) and NGC 6286 (on the right), and collectively they are known as Arp 293. Their mutual gravity is pulling on the gas and stars in each galaxy, the consequences of which are most clearly seen in NGC 6285, which is taking on a distorted shape.

Image: ESA/Hubble & NASA, K. Larson et al.