Broadside
Walls
Broadside
Walls
Heavily buttressed transept and sanctuary walls of the 17th century mission church at Quarai are backlit by converging spiral galaxies.
Caught in each other
=s gravitational pull, the two galaxies are destined to circle, disrupting and distorting each other, causing stars and gas streamers to be flung out into space. Eventually the two will merge, creating a single massive galaxy. This view was created by NASA=s Hubble Heritage Team using three separate pointings of the Hubble Space Telescope. The galaxies are NGC 2207 and IC 2163. (GRIN Data Base: GPN-2000-000897. Also credit STScI, AURA.)The church, surrounding convento and village were built to missionize the Indians in central New Mexico, and to protect a route to salt deposits. Raiding Apaches, drought and famine made life difficult. The site was abandoned before the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
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