Astronomers have spotted a rare galactic alignment in space. Here’s what we know.
After months, scientists have revealed the origin of the mysterious cosmic question mark immortalized in 2023 by the James Webb Space Telescope. Aliens didn’t design itas some jokingly suggest, but an interaction between two galaxies: a red one and a spiral one, both about 7 billion light years away from Earth. To complete the figure there is a third unrelated galaxy which, for a curious perspective effect, forms the “dot” under the arch.
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The mystery of the question mark immortalized by James Webb has been solved
“Both galaxies show active star formation in different regions, probably due to the collision of gas from the two galaxies.” This was stated by Vicente Estrada-Carpenter, astronomer at Saint Mary’s University in Canada and author of the study. However, these galaxies are not too irregularly shaped, suggesting that we are probably at the beginning of their interaction. “We are observing galaxies of similar mass to what they would have had billions of years ago, during the peak of star formation,” adds Marcin Sawicki, Estrada-Carpenter’s colleague.
Young stars in the making
The new images, taken by the Webb telescope and published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, have shed light on this enigmatic phenomenon. The question mark figure was spotted near two young forming stars, called Herbig-Haro 46/47. They are located in the constellation Vela about 1,470 light-years from Earth. Although this region had been observed before, the dusty red galaxy that forms the arch of the question mark only appeared thanks to the power and sensitivity of the James Webb telescope.
How the James Webb is changing the way we observe the universe
The space telescope, the result of collaboration between the space agencies of the United States, Europe and Canada, is thus allowing scientists to explore new frontiers of the universe. It will allow us to study how he must have looked during his “adolescence”.
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