                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2022 December 2

                         Merging Galaxy Pair IIZw096
           Image Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, L. Armus, A. Evans

   Explanation: Bright at infrared wavelengths, this merging galaxy pair
   is some 500 million light-years away toward the constellation
   Delphinus. The cosmic mashup is seen against a background of even more
   distant galaxies, and occasional spiky foreground stars. But the galaxy
   merger itself spans about 100,000 light-years in this deep James Webb
   Space Telescope image. The image data is from Webb's Near-InfraRed
   Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI). Their combined,
   sharp infrared view follows galactic scale restructuring in the dusty
   merger's wild jumble of intense star forming regions and distorted
   spiral arms

                     Tomorrow's picture: Stereo Saturday
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