The James Webb Space Telescope’s second year of science is celebrated with a spectacular view of two interacting galaxies. This revolutionary telescope from NASA reveals the secrets of the universe with its continuous observations.
James Webb’s spectacular galaxy view in his second year
The James Webb Space Telescope captured a stunning image of two interacting galaxies known as Arp 142. These galaxies are interconnected in a slow cosmic dance. These images, captured by Webb with NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid Infrared Instrument), show a blue mixture of stars and gas.
Shiftdelete.netArp 142 consists of two galaxies called Penguin (NGC 2936) and Egg (NGC 2937). These galaxies, which passed close to each other for the first time approximately 25 to 75 million years ago, will gradually merge and become a single galaxy. This process will take hundreds of millions of years.
Shiftdelete.netWhile the Penguin Galaxy maintains its spiral structure, the star cluster at its center shines like an eye. Its arms are shaped like a beak, head, back and tail. Like spiral galaxies, the Penguin is rich in gas and dust. The dance of galaxies pulls Penguin’s thin fields of gas and dust in waves, causing new stars to form.
In contrast, the Egg galaxy, being an elliptical galaxy, is full of old stars and has much less gas and dust. So, unlike the Penguin, it remains largely unchanged. If both galaxies were spirals, new star formation and spiral arms would occur after the first pass.
The James Webb Telescope, which has attracted attention with what it has detected so far, is this time with the oldest black hole discovery!
These galaxies are estimated to be around 100,000 light-years away, which is a pretty close distance in astronomical terms. By comparison, the Milky Way galaxy and its nearest neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy, are about 2.5 million light-years away, and these galaxies will also interact in about 4 billion years.
James Webb’s abilities reveal many distant galaxies as well as Arp 142. Webb’s sensitive, high-resolution infrared instruments reveal many more galaxies with reddish dust. This means Webb will continue to expand our horizons of knowledge by allowing us to explore every aspect of the universe.
