Scientists now have a better view than ever before of the tail feathers of a particular penguin. Only the bird in question is not what you might expect.
NASA scientists who operate the James Webb Space Telescope have unveiled new images of two galaxies dubbed the Penguin and the Egg for their shapes and proximity to each other. Images of the galaxies had previously been collected by the Hubble Space Telescope, but the photos released Friday show stars, gas and cosmic dust more clearly, NASA said. The photos of the Penguin and the Egg also mark two years since the first groundbreaking images from the Webb telescope were released.
“Astronomers often give cute names to things they study because it helps us remember and keep a catalog of interacting galaxies in our brains,” said Eric Smith, the James Webb Space Telescope program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The Penguin and the Egg are a great example.”
The Penguin Galaxy, also known as NGC 2936, is a spiral galaxy that resembles the stocky Arctic bird, complete with a beak, a face with a bright eyeball, and a sloping, feathery tail. The Egg, known as NGC 2937, is nearby (in astronomical terms) and is an elliptical or oval-shaped galaxy, hence the name.
According to NASA, the two galaxies are bound together in a gravitational dance, and despite their different sizes, they have about the same mass.
“They will continue to wobble and wiggle, and circle around several more times before merging into a single galaxy over hundreds of millions of years,” NASA said in a statement.
In Friday’s images, the gas appears brighter, shown as a blue hue, and the Webb telescope can see through dust that partially obscured Penguin’s “eye” in earlier images, Smith said.
“Studying things in space is just beautiful and fun,” Smith told USA TODAY. “It’s definitely one of my favorite images.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NASA James Webb Telescope Reveals Penguin and Egg Galaxies