This visible-light picture, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and released on January 9, 2001, reveals an intergalactic "pipeline" of material flowing between two battered galaxies that bumped into each other about 100 million years ago. The pipeline (the dark string of matter) begins in NGC 1410 (the galaxy at left), crosses over 20,000 light-years of intergalactic space, and wraps around NGC 1409 (the companion galaxy at right) like a ribbon around a package. Although astronomers have taken many stunning pictures of galaxies slamming into each other, this image represents the clearest view of how some interacting galaxies dump material onto their companions.