(Cape Canaveral, Florida)..- The Webb Space Telescope has captured a pair of intertwined galaxies that shine in infrared light.
The observatory, run by NASA and the European Space Agency, imaged the two galaxies 326 million light-years away, surrounded by a blue haze of stars and gas. One light-year is 5.8 billion miles (9.4 billion kilometers).
The images, released Friday, mark the second anniversary of Webb’s scientific operations.
According to NASA, the two neighboring galaxies, nicknamed the Penguin and the Egg, have been intertwined for tens of millions of years. They will eventually merge into one galaxy. The same interaction will occur between our Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy in about 4 billion years, according to the space agency.
The successor to the aging Hubble Space Telescope, Webb is the largest and most powerful astronomical observatory ever launched. It launched in 2021 and underwent six months of operation, before its first official images were released in July 2022.
It is located one million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth.
“In just two years, Webb has changed our view of the universe,” NASA’s Mark Clampin said in a statement.
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