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Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):

coreyspowell ("Corey S Powell") wrote:

To keep my American brain from exploding today, here are some remarkable new deep-space images from JWST.

First, a celestial smash-up. JWST's infrared eyes reveal cold dust that forms the "skeleton" of these colliding galaxies, known as IC 2163 and NGC 2207.

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-136 #space #science #nature #astronomy

Attachments:

• Webb’s mid-infrared image excels at showing where the cold dust glows throughout these galaxies — and helps pinpoint where stars and star clusters are buried within the dust. Find these regions by looking for the pink dots along the spiral arms. Many of these areas are home to actively forming stars that are still encased in the gas and dust that feeds their growth. Other pink dots may be objects that lie well behind these galaxies, including extremely distant active supermassive black holes known as quasars.