Two galaxies, the Penguin and the Egg, get a family photo thanks to the Webb telescope: NPR

Like a protective parent, one galaxy looms high above the other, as if peering down at its neighbor. The two galaxies are named NGC 2936 and NGC 2937 — but they are more famously known as the Penguin and the Egg.

The team behind the James Webb Space Telescope New photo of the couple revealed On Friday, the image showed the two galaxies more clearly than ever before — and marks two years since the first images were released using the Advanced Telescope’s infrared instruments.

“Webb is providing insights into long-standing mysteries of the early universe and opening a new era for studying distant worlds, while sending back images that inspire people around the world and pose exciting new questions to answer,” said Mark Clampin, director of NASA’s Astrophysics Division.

The two galaxies are close to each other, galactically speaking, and although they are locked in interaction with each other, their fanciful names hide their true ages: in this case of the penguin and the egg, the egg came first.

The Egg is a compact elliptical galaxy, and like a long-lost link in the Love boatIt’s “full of aging stars,” NASA says.

On the other hand, the Penguin Galaxy is a spiral galaxy filled with gas and dust, allowing it to be “rich in hot, newly formed stars,” as NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in 2018When Hubble released an image of the pair.

The penguin’s shape has been distorted and twisted by the egg over tens of millions of years, in what NASA calls a “slow cosmic dance” that helped generate new stars along the way.

Despite their vastly different appearance, the penguin and the egg have roughly the same mass, according to NASA.

The distance between the two galaxies is estimated at about 100,000 light-years; because of their proximity to each other, they are collectively called Arp 142. Eventually, after more dance and attraction in the universe, the two galaxies will merge into one body.