Two galaxies are converging in the constellation Leo Minor, and according to a new image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, they’re quite pleased with their ongoing merger. The image, which captures the colliding duo known as Arp 107, appears to depict the familiar image of a smiley face.
Arp 107 consists of a large spiral galaxy, PGC 32620, and a smaller elliptical galaxy, PGC 32628. Connected by a “bridge” and a tidal tail of dust and gas, the two have been battling for centuries, a process that will eventually culminate in a complete merger in hundreds of millions of years, by POTMeanwhile, galaxies will continue to push and pull each other from their cosmic neighborhood, some 450 million light-years from Earth.
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, now retired, was the first in the picture Arp 107 in 2005. Even then, its infrared renderings clearly included two eyes, a nose, and a smiling mouth, especially in the 8-micron wavelength. The Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) also captured a Beautiful image Last year, Arp 107 was captured for the first time, although the instrument’s visible and near-infrared focus makes the celestial smile harder to make out. This month’s Webb image features the best of both worlds: thanks to Webb’s NIRCam (near-infrared camera), the stars in the galaxies and the milky gas that connects them can easily be distinguished, while the MIRI (mid-infrared instrument) shows Arp 107’s star-forming regions and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, colored red and orange. Neighboring stars and distant galaxies glow in the background.
Image of Arp 107 obtained solely by MIRI using Webb.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
A MIRI-only copy of the image (above), colorized with neon hues, removes much of the dust and gas from the compilation image to offer a clearer view of Arp 107’s cosmic smile. At the center of the spiral galaxy (the “nose” of the smiley face) lies the supermassive black hole responsible for drawing PGC 32620’s dust into the fringes. NASA notes that the black hole also offers a glimpse of Webb’s telltale diffraction spikes, or the starburst-like burst of light caused by Webb’s interaction with light out in space.
Arp 107's space smile is just one of the whimsical ones images Webb has recently taken a photo. Earlier this month, the observatory captured a heavenly question markIn July, Webb celebrated her second anniversary with a pair of intertwined galaxies nicknamed “the penguin and the egg.”
