The Webb Space Telescope has captured a pair of entangled galaxies glowing in infrared light.
Observatories run by NASA and the European Space Agency captured the two galaxies surrounded by a blue haze of stars and gas 326 million light-years apart. One light-year is 5.8 trillion miles.
The photo, released Friday, marks two years of science observations from the Webb Space Telescope.
According to NASA, the neighboring galaxies, nicknamed The Penguin and the Egg, have been intertwined for tens of millions of years.
They will eventually merge into one galaxy.
According to the space agency, a similar interaction will occur between our own Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies in 4 billion years’ time.
Webb, which is meant to be a successor to the aging Hubble Space Telescope, is the largest and most powerful observatory ever launched.
It was launched in 2021 and after six months of commissioning, the first official images were released in July 2022.
It is located one million miles from Earth.
“In just two years, Webb has transformed the way we see space,” NASA’s Mark Crumpen said in a statement.
