Webb Space Telescope Captures Intertwined Galaxies in Stunning Infrared Images

The Webb Space Telescope, operated by NASA and the European Space Agency, has photographed a pair of intertwined galaxies 326 million light-years away. This marks the second anniversary of Webb’s science operations. The galaxies, nicknamed Penguin and the Egg, will eventually merge, and this type of interaction will happen to the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy in 4 billion years.

The Webb Space Telescope has captured a pair of intertwined galaxies glowing in the infrared.

The observatory, operated by NASA and the European Space Agency, photographed the two galaxies 326 million light-years away, surrounded by a blue haze of stars and gas. A light-year is 5.8 trillion miles.

The images, released on Friday, mark the second anniversary of Webb's science operations. The neighboring galaxies, nicknamed Penguin and the Egg, have been tangled up for tens of millions of years, according to NASA. They will eventually merge into a single galaxy. A similar interaction is expected to occur between our Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy in about 4 billion years, the space agency said. As the successor to the aging Hubble Space Telescope, Webb is the largest and most powerful astronomical observatory ever launched. It rocketed away in 2021 and underwent six months of commissioning before releasing its first official images in July 2022. Positioned 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth, Webb has, in just two years, transformed our view of the universe, according to NASA's Mark Clampin.