Public Picks Cuddling Galaxies As Hubble Target

The polls are closed, all the ballots are in and we have a winner: the public is pointing NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to a pair of cuddling galaxies that are coming together in deep space.

A total of 139,944 votes were cast online for six candidates during NASA's month-long "Hubble, You Decide" contest. Forty-eight percent of those votes -- 67,021 -- were cast for two interacting galaxies known as Arp 274.

Drawn together by their gravity, the galactic pair might be spawning offspring. The spiral shapes of the galaxies largely are intact, but as they merge together, the gas clouds inside them might be forming new stars.

A spiral galaxy hosting more than 100 billion stars (NGC 5172) came second place with 26,987 votes, or 19 percent of the total.

Third place went to an interstellar nursery (NGC 6334) where hot young stars emit high-energy radiation. It had 21,475 votes, or 15 percent of the vote.

In fourth place was an edge-on galaxy (NGC 4289) with 11,451 votes, or eight percent of the ballot. Two planetary nebula (NGC 40 and NGC 6072) came in fifth and sixth, respectively. Each had less than one percent of the vote.

You can see all the candidates here: Hubble, You Decide

The workhorse camera that has captured Hubble's most iconic images -- Wide-Field Planetary Camera 2 -- will take a high-resolution image of the winning candidate. The image will be released in early April as part of the agency's International Year of Astronomy celebration.

Launched from Kennedy Space Center in April 1990 aboard shuttle Discovery, the Hubble telescope is designed to be repaired by astronauts. NASA aims to launch a fifth and final Hubble servicing mission on May 12.

An astronaut crew led by veteran mission commander Scott Altman will outfit the observatory with two new science instruments, attempt to repair two others, and equip the telescope with gear that will extend its useful life another five years.

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ABOUT THE IMAGES: Click to enlarge and save the top photo of the Hubble Space Telescope floating above the limb of the Earth. It was captured by the crew of STS-103 during a servicing mission in 1999. The next photo shows Arp 274, interacting galaxies that might be spawning offspring.