The striking red and orange regions scattered across the galaxy contain young stars created in the stellar merger of two supermassive galaxies.
The astronomers in charge of the operation of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) published last week a new image of the galaxy NGC 3256 obtained with their mid-infrared instrument. NGC 3256 is a spiral galaxy, the size of the Milky Way, which lies about 120 million light-years away, in the constellation Vela. The image, obtained at infrared and near-infrared wavelengths, revealed evidence of his violent past.
Scientists estimate that this distorted galaxy is the aftermath of a head-on collision and merger between two equally massive spiral galaxies. What happened about 500 million years ago?. The galaxies intermingled their dust and interstellar clouds, resulting in a bright burst of continuous star formation that is now captured in amazing detail by JWST in the brightest parts of this image.
NGC 3256’s violent past is evidenced by the long tendrils of glowing dust and stars that extend from the main body of the galaxy. The striking red and orange regions scattered across the galaxy contain young stars created in stellar fusion. These young stars radiate small grains of dust that later they emit infrared light that can penetrate through the dust that obscures the galaxy. Webb’s instruments were able to capture this intense brilliance with pinpoint sharpness.
Source: RT
