NGC 5679 (Arp 274)

NGC 5679 comprises three galaxies that appear to overlap each other, but are probably at slightly different distances from us. The spiral shapes of the two larger galaxies appear mostly intact, and if they were very close, they would have disrupted each other. The third galaxy, on the left of the image, is much smaller.  The blue patches, seen mainly in the left and right galaxies, represent areas of new star formation.  The yellow areas, mainly in the center of each galaxy, shows older yellow stars.  The system is approximately 123 Mpc away (400 million light-years).  The two very bright stars just above the center on the right are in our Milky Way galaxy, and much, much closer to us.     Image Credit