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Just a few hours ago we wrote about the new image of the “pillars of creation” taken from James Webb Space Telescope thanks to NIRCam (near infrared) and MIRI (mid infrared) instruments. But in a short period of time, other images with other subjects were released. One of the most interesting concerns the galaxies II ZW 96 which are in the process of merging.
It’s not the first time that JWST extension is used to observe this kind of phenomena. Something similar had happened with the image released at the end of October which featured the galaxies of the structure called IC 1623 (pair of galaxies 270 million light years from Earth, in the constellation Cetus). II ZW 96 instead they are far more distant and the image is perhaps even more fascinating, allowing us to see the interaction between the two galaxies. Here’s what we know.
Galaxies II ZW 96 as seen by the James Webb Space Telescope
According to what is reportedthe merging pair of galaxies known as the II ZW 96 or ZW II 96 it is located about 500 million light years from Earth in the constellation Delphinus (in the celestial equator). The JWST Space Telescope allows you to see the structure of the two galaxies that are interacting and that will lead to the formation of a single large galaxy. In the background, however, there are none “simple” stars but other even more distant galaxies.
The area of galactic nuclei has a blue color while i arms they are thickly dotted with orange/red. This difference is due to the fact that the latter are star formation areas where there are stars that are at the beginning of their life. The James Webb Space Telescope he employed both MIRI that NIR Cam and different filters to have a wider data collection and create the images we see in this news.
The galaxy that is in the lower area has its own arms spiraling deformed by the gravitational perturbation due to the merger with the other galaxy (located in the upper area). Precisely because of such active and visible star formation zones, researchers have tried to acquire images of II ZW 96.
Click on the image to enlarge
In general, the luminosity of these galaxies is so high as to be 100 billion times that of the Sun. II ZW 96 had already been the subject of observations by Hubble in the past and scientists have also proposed the JWST extension to better understand the intricacies of interactions between galaxies like these. As for the wavelengths observed from the James Webb Space Telescope we find those at 1.5 μm, 2.0 μm, 3.56 μm and 4.4 μm for NIRCam assigning them the colors blue, cyan, green, red respectively. Instead for MIRI those at 5.6 μm, 7.7 μm and 15 μm were detected by assigning the colors green and red.
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