Collision of Two Spiral Galaxies Spotted

The James Webb Space Telescope, which is our eyes and ears in the universe and has captured many fascinating images since its mission, continues to send images that will help us understand galaxies, star formation and the emergence of the universe.

The latest images reveal fascinating details about a process in which our galaxy will be in the future; the process of ‘colliding’ two galaxies. This formation, called Arp 220, consists of two spiral galaxies in the process of merging, and these galaxies began ‘colliding’ 700 million years ago.

The merging process of galaxies triggered the birth of a new star, which is a massive ‘burst of light’

Arp 220, which is 250 million light years away from us and consists of two galaxies, is also the brightest of the three ‘closest’ galaxy mergers to us. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope had previously discovered the cores of these main galaxies, located 1,200 light-years apart. The merging cores of these two galaxies are each surrounded by ‘rings’ that fuel star formation.

The image of this process, in which gigantic energies are released, is more than a trillion times the brightness of the Sun. By comparison, the Milky Way Galaxy is only ten billion Suns bright…

If you want to take a closer look;

This is how Hubble had captured the same landscape before;