NASA releases image of 2 spiral galaxies merging in "enormous burst" 250 million light-years away
NASA released a new image Monday of two spiral galaxies in the process of merging 250 million light-years away, in the constellation of Serpens, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.
NASA says the collision of the two spiral galaxies, dubbed "Arp 220," began about 700 million years ago and sparked an enormous burst of star formation.
"It is an ultra-luminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) with a luminosity of more than a trillion suns," NASA officials said in a news release. "The amount of gas in this tiny region is equal to all of the gas in the entire Milky Way galaxy."
Scientists say Arp 220 is both the nearest ultra-luminous infrared galaxy and the brightest of the three galactic mergers closest to Earth.
The Hubble Space Telescope had previously uncovered the cores of the parent galaxies 1,200 light-years apart, but with the Webb telescope's new view, far more detail is revealed.
"Each of the cores has a rotating, star-forming ring blasting out the dazzling infrared light so apparent in this Webb view. This glaring light creates diffraction spikes — the starburst feature that dominates this image," NASA explains. "On the outskirts of this merger, Webb reveals faint tidal tails, or material drawn off the galaxies by gravity, represented in blue — evidence of the galactic dance that is occurring," along with organic material represented in reddish-orange.