A spectacular new view of two dwarf galaxies caught in the middle of a cosmic collision reveals a glowing gas bridge, streams of newborn stars and the ongoing gravitational tug-of-war reshaping both galaxies.
Taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the new image captures the dwarf galaxies NGC 4490 and NGC 4485 stretching, tugging and warping one another in a dramatic gravitational dance unfolding 24 million light-years away. Because dwarf galaxies closely resemble the low-mass, gas-rich, metal-poor systems that populated the early universe, their collisions and gas exchanges provide a valuable window into how the first galaxies formed and evolved, according to a statement from the European Space Agency.
