A cosmic object in the shape of a glowing question mark has photobombed one of the latest images captured by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope — and scientists think they know what it might be.
WASHINGTON — A cosmic object in the shape of a glowing question mark has photobombed one of the latest images captured by NASA'sThe original near-infrared image, released July 26, depicted a pair of young stars named Herbig-Haro 46/47. Found 1,470 light-years away in the Vela constellation within the Milky Way galaxy, the stars are still actively forming and closely orbiting each other.
The Webb telescope usually allows you to see six or eight stellar "prongs" if you look closely, Caplan added. "It tells you immediately that it's not a star," he said of the question-mark-shaped phenomenon. "And when that happens, they can get distorted into all kinds of different shapes — including a question mark, apparently."It is likely the first time this specific object has been seen, experts said, but the merging of galaxies into a question mark-like shape has happened before — including a backward version formed by the Antennae Galaxies in the Corvus constellation.
This integration is also the eventual destiny of our own galaxy, which will merge with the Andromeda galaxy in about 4 billion years, Britt said — but the shape they'll take is unknown.
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