This month, if you rise early enough before dawn, your eyes will catch the brilliant glow of Venus in the eastern sky. But just under this celestial jewel, a spectacularly violent spectacle unfolds—two colossal galaxies engaged in a mesmerizing "cosmic joust"!

Situated a staggering 11 billion light-years away, these galaxies are tantalizingly close to the universe's infancy. They whirl toward each other at an astonishing speed of 310 miles per second (500 kilometers per second), destined for a series of awe-inspiring collisions that will shape their destinies.

Captured by the state-of-the-art Very Large Telescope and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile, this breathtaking image has just been unveiled in the prestigious journal *Nature*. What makes this event even more fascinating is that one of the galaxies houses a quasar—an incredibly luminous entity fueled by a supermassive black hole devouring gas and dust. The European Space Agency declares quasars as some of the brightest objects in the universe, radiating thousands of times more light than our entire Milky Way.

The quasar, dubbed J012555.11−012925.00, is featured on the right side of the image. As it collides with the galaxy to its left, it unleashes an intense wave of radiation that pierces through clouds of gas and dust, echoing the actions of medieval jousters who aimed their lances with precision. The collision profoundly affects the galaxy on the left, stunting its ability to birth new stars.

This groundbreaking observation marks the first time astronomers have captured such a dynamic interaction. Sergey Balashev, co-lead of the study from the Ioffe Institute in St. Petersburg, enthusiastically expressed, "Here we see for the first time the effect of a quasar's radiation directly on the internal structure of the gas in an otherwise regular galaxy."

Remarkably, the quasar’s radiation leaves only the densest areas of gas and dust intact, which are likely too minuscule to spawn new stars. Meanwhile, the collision's aftermath fortifies the quasar, delivering ample new fuel to the voracious black hole at its center. Balashev explained, "These mergers are thought to bring huge amounts of gas to supermassive black holes residing in galaxy centers."

To dive even deeper into this magnificent event, the European Southern Observatory has also released exhilarating videos on YouTube, showcasing the science behind the spectacle, providing a closer look at the galactic collision, and featuring artistic impressions of this dramatic cosmic encounter.