Webb peers into Arp 263, a nearby irregular galaxy still bearing the scars of a violent merger and filled with newly forming stars.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Image of the Day from the European Space Agency reveals a galaxy still bearing the scars of a violent collision.<\/p>\n
Located about 25 million light-years away in the constellation Leo, Arp 263 is an irregular galaxy caught in the strange final phase of a galactic merger.<\/p>\n
The James Webb Space Telescope<\/a> has now peered through its crowded clouds of gas and dust, exposing clusters of newborn stars scattered across a galaxy that has yet to settle down.<\/p>\n A galaxy shaken by a merger<\/p>\n Arp 263, also known as NGC 3239, looks nothing like the orderly spiral galaxies familiar from many space images.\u00a0<\/p>\n Its stars and gas form an uneven, distorted structure filled with bright clumps of star formation.<\/p>\n Astronomers believe that shape is the aftermath of a collision between galaxies<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Two short, curved tails of stars extend beyond the area shown in Webb\u2019s new image, a telltale sign of past gravitational interactions.<\/p>\n There is another clue inside the galaxy. Arp 263\u2019s stars are oriented differently from its hydrogen gas, while portions of that gas are moving at different speeds.<\/p>\n Together, these features point to a system that was seriously disrupted and has not yet returned to equilibrium.<\/p>\n The missing galaxy<\/p>\n One mystery remains: astronomers cannot see the galaxy that collided with Arp 263.<\/p>\n No nearby companion appears to be interacting with it today.\u00a0<\/p>\n One possibility is that the missing galaxy was a small dwarf galaxy<\/a> that had already been completely torn apart and absorbed into Arp 263.<\/p>\n Another possibility is that the companion contained far more mass than its brightness would suggest, leaving behind a remnant that is difficult to detect.<\/p>\n Whatever happened, the encounter left Arp 263 with another hallmark of a galactic collision: widespread formation of new stars.<\/p>\n Webb peers inside<\/p>\n Webb\u2019s Near-Infrared Camera, or NIRCam, provides a particularly revealing look at this activity.<\/p>\n Infrared observations allow Webb to see through some of the material that obscures stars at visible wavelengths.\u00a0<\/p>\n In Arp 263, that capability reveals numerous stars embedded within the galaxy\u2019s thick concentrations of gas.<\/p>\n Older stars<\/a> appear alongside regions where new generations are taking shape in clusters.<\/p>\n Dust spread through the galaxy also glows in Webb\u2019s view. Around the star-forming regions, hydrogen gas has been ionized by intense starlight and produces light of its own.<\/p>\n The most active region contains a curved chain of compact star clusters leading toward the galaxy\u2019s largest and brightest star-forming nebula.<\/p>\n Hubble saw a different galaxy<\/p>\n Arp 263 previously appeared in a 2023 image from the NASA\/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.<\/p>\n Hubble\u2019s visible-light observations showed bright nebulae nestled among dense clouds of gas.\u00a0<\/p>\n Webb\u2019s infrared vision now pushes deeper into those same regions, revealing many of the stars and clusters within them.<\/p>\n A particularly bright object in the image does not belong to Arp 263 at all. The star BD+17 2217 sits in our own Milky Way<\/a> and appears enormous because it is vastly closer to Earth.<\/p>\n Far beyond Arp 263, meanwhile, Webb picks up hundreds of much more distant galaxies, many appearing as tiny orange points.<\/p>\n A galaxy still in turmoil<\/p>\n Arp 263 has attracted attention for a long time. It was first discovered in 1784 and later earned a place in astronomer Halton Arp\u2019s 1966 Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies.<\/p>\n Arp placed it among galaxies characterized by \u201cirregular clumps,\u201d a description that makes considerably more sense with today\u2019s powerful telescopes. Many of those clumps are sites where stars are being born.<\/p>\n Webb\u2019s observations are part of a broader survey of nearby, large star-forming galaxies.\u00a0<\/p>\n Because these galaxies are relatively close to Earth, astronomers can examine individual stars, clusters<\/a>, and clouds of interstellar dust in exceptional detail.<\/p>\n Arp 263 offers an especially chaotic laboratory. Its gas remains disturbed, stars continue to form across the galaxy, and the partner responsible for the upheaval has seemingly disappeared.<\/p>\n The galaxy we see today is therefore something of a cosmic aftermath \u2013 a system still reorganizing itself long after gravity brought two galaxies together.<\/p>\n Image Credit: ESA\/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Leroy<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.\u00a0<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Webb peers into Arp 263, a nearby irregular galaxy still bearing the scars of a violent merger and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-600097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}