The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured a stunning new image of two dwarf galaxies, NGC 4490 and NGC 4485, stretching and twisting on the brink of collision.
Webb’s image shows a vast, glowing bridge of gas, a string of newborn stars, and a powerful interaction that is reshaping both galaxies. Dwarf galaxies resemble small, gas-rich systems that existed in the early Universe. Their collisions are helping scientists understand how the first galaxies formed.
This is the closest dwarf-dwarf interacting system outside of our own galaxy’s dwarf companions, according to ESA, where scientists have seen both a gas bridge and a well-defined stellar “population” at the same time.
