 Here we are zooming into NGC 3256. It is approximately the same size as our Milky Way and bears the marks of its past galactic collision in the extended luminous tails that sprawl out around the galaxy. These are thought to have formed around 500 million years ago during the initial encounter between the two galaxies, which today form just one. These tails are studded with young blue stars. It is believed that their birth was triggered by the collision. The brightness of the center of the galaxy makes it a starburst galaxy, host to vast amounts of infant stars born into groups and clusters. As well as being lit up by over a thousand bright star clusters, the central region is home to crisscrossing threads of dark dust and a large disk of molecular gas spinning around two distinct nuclei, the relics of the two original galaxies. It takes an X-ray telescope to see the second nuclei, and in a few hundred million years their nuclei will merge.