If you think planets colliding sounds intimidating, you have to see entire galaxies crossing paths and leaving breathtaking imagery behind. To celebrate the 18th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's launch, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland released vivid pictures of both small and enormous systems merging in destructive ways.

Like clouds that randomly form interesting shapes, crashing galaxies can turn into recognizable spectacles, such as the butterfly NGC 6240 seen above. Some consider it a lobster, but we'd rather dub it a crab with those pincers on the right side.

Since its controversial launch, the Hubble Telescope took pictures of  galaxy collisions while orbiting outside Earth's atmosphere. According to the institute, "astronomers observe only one out of a million galaxies in the nearby universe in the act of colliding. If you want to be amazed by images of those rare occurrences, click on the "via" link below.