A telescope captures a stunning image of two galaxies merging in space
On Friday, the US Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) published two images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope of two galaxies, one called the Penguin and the other the Egg, in the process of merging as if it were a cosmic ballet at a time when the American agency celebrates the two-year anniversary since it unveiled the scientific results. The first for a space telescope.James Webb launched into space in 2021 and began collecting data the following year. The space telescope reshaped the understanding of the early stages of the universe by capturing stunning images. The two galaxies whose images were taken are located 326 million light-years from Earth in the Hydra constellation, knowing that a light-year is the distance that light travels in a year, which is 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion kilometers).
“We see two galaxies, each one containing a collection of billions of stars,” said Jane Rigby, a senior scientist on NASA's James Webb Project. "And the two galaxies are merging. This is a common way that galaxies, like ours, form over time, to grow from small galaxies, like the one in "Webb discovered them shortly after the Big Bang, to mature galaxies like our own Milky Way."
Since James Webb began working, the telescope has observed galaxies teeming with stars that formed within a few hundred million years of the Big Bang event that launched the universe about 13.8 billion years ago. The two mixed galaxies are known as Arb 142, and appear in the images amidst a haze of stars and gas as they slowly merge.
The Penguin Galaxy was given this name because its shape from a telescope angle resembles that of a flightless bird, including a beak-like area. Officially called NGC 2936, this galaxy is a spiral galaxy, and is now slightly distorted.
The Egg Galaxy is also named according to its shape, and is officially called NGC 2937. It is a compact, elliptical galaxy, and their appearance together suggests a penguin guarding its egg. NASA says that their interaction together began between 25 and 75 million years ago, and it is expected that they will become one galaxy hundreds of millions of years from now.
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