Merging Galaxy Pair IIZw096

Astronomy Picture of the Day · 2022-12-02 · NASA (public domain)

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Merging Galaxy Pair IIZw096 — APOD for 2022-12-02

Bright at infrared wavelengths, this merging galaxy pair is some 500 million light-years away toward the constellation Delphinus. The cosmic mashup is seen against a background of even more distant galaxies, and occasional spiky foreground stars. But the galaxy merger itself spans about 100,000 light-years in this deep James Webb Space Telescope image . The image data is from Webb's Near-InfraRed Camera ( NIRCam ) and Mid-InfraRed Instrument ( MIRI ). Their combined, sharp infrared view follows galactic scale restructuring in the dusty merger's wild jumble of intense star forming regions and distorted spiral arms

Astronomy Picture of the Day for 2022-12-02 — image & explanation courtesy of NASA (public domain), mirrored at Tukuk-OS for reading and search convenience.

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