Space can be a horror show of cosmic violence, and now astronomers have captured the first photographic evidence of the carnage that can be unleashed when two heavyweight galaxies collide.

A collaboration between an international team of researchers has produced the first ever image of a relativistic jet of gas and plasma spewing forth from a pair of galaxies as they dive head-first into one another.

While galaxies have been caught mid-collision plenty of times before, this is the first time a jet of this kind has been seen spilling out of such a merger, and it could tell us a thing or two about how they arise.