The object along the bottom of the image is a Frisbee-shaped disk galaxy seen edge-on. Hubble's sharp vision reveals the silhouette of dust lanes that look like dark storm clouds bisecting the galaxy. Newborn hot stars appear as a blue strip of lights embedded in the dust lanes. The pinkish haze above and below the dust is the combined light of myriad ancient stars, the galaxy's first settlers.

Resembling a pair of July 4th pinwheel fireworks, two other majestic spiral galaxies can be seen in the upper half of the picture. The smaller galaxy is receding from the group. If it is truly a member of the group -- and not a chance background galaxy -- it will swing back as it completes an orbit around the other galaxies.

An elliptical-shaped galaxy can be found near the right side of the picture. Because the galaxy completed most of its star-making billions of years ago, it lacks dust and contains only an older population of reddish stars.

A faint bridge of stars connects the elliptical and edge-on spiral galaxy. These linked galaxies each harbor well-fed super-massive black holes at their bright centers.

Though an estimated 120 billion galaxies are scattered across the universe, astronomers have cataloged only a few hundred examples where galaxies are in tight groupings of four or five galaxies each.