Zoom into interacting galaxies Arp 142

This video takes the viewer on a journey through space to the interacting galaxies known as Arp 142.

The distorted spiral galaxy at the centre, the Penguin, and the compact elliptical galaxy at the left, the Egg, are locked in an active embrace. A new near- and mid-infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope, taken to mark its second year of science, shows that their interaction is marked by a faint upside-down U-shaped blue glow.

The pair, known jointly as Arp 142, made their first pass between 25 and 75 million years ago — causing ‘fireworks’, or new star formation, in the Penguin. In the most extreme cases, mergers can cause galaxies to form thousands of new stars per year for a few million years. For the Penguin, research has shown that about 100 to 200 stars have formed per year. By comparison, our Milky Way galaxy (which is not interacting with a galaxy of the same size) forms roughly six to seven new stars per year.

Arp 142 lies 326 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra.

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