NASA released a new image from the James Webb Space Telescope to mark the 2nd anniversary of JWST starting science operations.
The image shows two interacting galaxies known as Arp 142, which resemble a cosmic penguin with its egg. The penguin galaxy is NGC 2936 and the egg galaxy is NGC 2937.
The galaxies are around 326 million light years from Earth. Their interaction began 25-75 million years ago and NGC 2936’s spiral shape has been disrupted.
NGC 2936 contains regions of increased gas and dust density from being pulled on by NGC 2937, triggering bursts of star formation seen as the penguin’s features.
NGC 2937 is relatively undisturbed as an elliptical galaxy with fewer gas and dust, so the interaction isn’t triggering as much star formation.
The image also shows a background edge-on galaxy, PGC 1237172, which is only visible in the near-infrared due to its young, blue stars.
Over the past two years, JWST has revolutionized our view of the universe with unprecedented images and data on early galaxies, black holes and exoplanets.
Source: Space
