Merging Galaxy Pair IIZw096
Model: gpt-4.1
Prompt version: 1.0
Bright at infrared astronomy wavelengths, this merging galaxy pair is some 500 million light-years away toward the constellation Delphinus.
The cosmic mashup is seen against a background of even more distant galaxies, and occasional spiky foreground stars. But the galaxy merger itself spans about 100,000 light-years in this deep space James Webb Space Telescope image.
The image data is from Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI). Their combined, sharp infrared astronomy view follows galactic scale restructuring in the dusty merger’s wild jumble of intense star forming regions and distorted spiral arms, suffused with cosmic dust.
The image is a beautiful example of astrophotography, revealing intricate details of galactic interactions in the constellation Delphinus.