With its unique glowing shape and colours spiralling down to a dot it appears to be begging the question - is anyone out there?

This image, taken at a distance of more than 100,000 light years by the Hubble space telescope, shows a group of galaxies interacting with another.

It was released today in honour of the 19th anniversary of the telescope's launch.

Punctuation mark in the heavens. The scientific name for the galaxies linked by a stream of glowing superstars is Arp 194