This is the Hercules galaxy cluster, located relatively close to us at just 500 million light-years away. But the way its galaxies are colliding with each other makes it look like a throwback to the chaos of the early universe.
This part of space may look like nothing special, but it's actually home to a tightly packed "galaxy city," composed of thirty extremely ancient galaxies. It's a big find... and it took thousands of hours of observation before anyone noticed.
In the prevailing view, elliptical galaxies are long-dead places, full of stars that are all at least seven to ten billion years old and without the gas needed to form new stars. The truth may not be that simple.
The universe can be a brutal place, as entire galaxies are ripped apart in cataclysmic collisions. No traces of the old galaxies are left behind, except for a few out-of-place stars, stubbornly orbiting the wrong way in their new galaxy.