When you purchase through golf links on our site , we may earn an affiliate commission . Here ’s how it works .
What it is : Arp 107 , a pair of interact coltsfoot
Where it is:465 million light - years away , in the configuration Leo Minor
A composite image of Arp 107 created with data from the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam and MIRI cameras.
When it was apportion : Sept. 18 , 2024
Why it ’s so special : A newJames Webb Space Telescope(JWST ) image has revealed the striking ethereal slew of a large spiral galaxy — much like our ownMilky Way — interact with a minor elliptical galaxy .
The two galaxies are conjointly name Arp 107 because they were first catalog by American astronomer Halton Arp , whose 1966"Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies"detailed interacting and immix extragalactic nebula in the Nox sky .
Although it was imaged last year by theHubble Space Telescope , Arp 107 has now been recapture using JWST ’s powerful infrared regard . This means astronomers can study the two disorderly coltsfoot in wavelength of light invisible to Hubble and the human eye .
Proving that sometimes it ’s not what you await at in the night sky that count but how you look at it , the new image more or less resembles a cosmic look . The two galaxy cores become its bright " eye , " while a bridge of stars relate them forms a semicircular " smile . "
Related:35 jaw - spend James Webb Space Telescope project
— outer space photo of the week : The first range of an foreign planet
— quad photo of the week : James Webb scope catches baby champion roaring to biography
— Monster calamitous hole is hunger its host wandflower to death , James Webb telescope reveals
The image is a composite of data from two cameras on JWST , the largest and most knock-down telescope ever launch into distance . It unite observations from JWST ’s Mid - Infrared Instrument ( MIRI ) and Near Infrared Camera , which detect wavelength of light that bring out much more than Hubble can . The Dafla image has also beenpublished separately .
In addition to the bridge deck of stars pluck from both galaxy during their entanglement , JWST ’s data reveals genius - forming realm , detritus and a bright lens nucleus in the large " Seyfert " spiral galaxy that houses an passing bright , point - like active galactic core group power by a supermassiveblack gob .
The young image is resonant ofWebb ’s 2022 imageof the Cartwheel Galaxy in the configuration Sculptor and two minuscule familiar galaxies .
How to see it in the Nox sky : Although Arp 107 is much too far off to be seeable to agood backyard scope , September is a great time to observe the Andromeda Galaxy ( M31 ) . A spiral galax larger than theMilky Way , it ’s about 2.5 million calorie-free - years away . It ’s rising in the northeast sky after dark , as seen from the Northern Hemisphere .
For more lofty space images , check out ourSpace Photo of the Week archive .
