NASA releases new 'Penguin and Egg' image from James Webb Space Telescope

NASA has released a stunning new image from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) marking the two-year anniversary of the release of its first images. And the space agency is calling it the "Penguin and Egg."

What exactly are we looking at? Well, it's two interacting galaxies known jointly as Arp 142 that lie 326 million light-years from Earth.

They are 100,000 light-years apart, which may sound far, but in astronomical terms, that's very close. In contrast, our Milky Way and the closest major galaxy to us — the Andromeda galaxy — are separated by 2.5 million light years.

The Penguin and Egg galaxies made their first pass some time between 25 and 75 million years ago, NASA said in a release. This, in turned, triggered a new star formation in the Penguin.

Galactic mergers can cause galaxies to form thousands of new stars a year over millions of years. In the case of the Penguin, NASA said, research suggests that about 100 to 200 new stars have formed each year. This is many times more than what is happening in our own galaxy, where only roughly six to seven new stars form each year.

Before the galactic interaction, the Penguin was a spiral galaxy. Now, the centre forms the "eye" of the Penguin. The Egg, on the other hand, is an elliptical galaxy, which contains much older stars. 

At the top right of the image is the PGC 1237172 galaxy, which is 100 million light-years closer to Earth, according to a release by the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md.

And, of course, in the background lie thousands more galaxies.

The gift that keeps on giving

JWST is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Unlike Hubble's one mirror, JWST has 18 individual mirrors that make up for one giant one. That makes it a light-catching machine, allowing it see some of the faintest objects and to peer far back into the earliest times of the universe. 

That's why astronomers were so excited when this game-changing telescope was launched on Dec. 25, 2021. It was a Christmas gift headed to orbit beyond the moon, just waiting to be unwrapped.

The first image released blew astronomers away.

It was the telescope's first wide-field image, which provided the sharpest and deepest infrared image of thousands of galaxies.

And JWST is the gift that keeps on giving, particularly to astronomers looking to better understand our universe and how we got here.

The telescope, with its massive light-collecting capability, is changing the way astronomers look at our universe. Its observations have challenged the idea of how stars form and even how fast the universe is expanding.

"[I'm] incredibly, incredibly grateful because the pictures that we are able to see now … it was not something that we thought we will be able to see," said Lamiya Mowla an assistant professor at Wellesley University in Wellesley, Mass.

She is one of several scientists who are part of the Canadian NIRISS Unbiased Cluster Survey (CANUCS).

"[Previously,] we were talking about that we will be able to resolve things down to … hundreds of light years or so, down to that level in a very, very early universe. Now, we can see that we can almost get down to tens of light years."

Data on exoplanets a 'game changer'

And while we don't get the jaw-dropping images from Webb when it comes to the study of exoplanets — planets orbiting other stars — its data is proving to be incredibly helpful in understanding planetary atmospheres, especially larger planets that are more similar to our outer planets, such as Jupiter and Neptune.

"If you look at other planets like hot Jupiters, or even colder, like Neptune, or Neptune-sized planets that are a bit colder … James Webb is really a game changer," said Olivia Lim, a PhD student at the Université de Montréal and member of the Trottier Institute for Research of Exoplanets, whose main area of focus is the seven-exoplanet system known as TRAPPIST-1. 

"People are able to measure things that we weren't able to measure before or they're they're able to do it with so much more precision."

And, of course, the telescope has also provided images of phenomena closer to home, such as a jaw-dropping image of Uranus and its rings.

Mowla said that she's incredibly grateful for JWST and what it can tell us about our own origins.

"The things that we are seeing over here is what it has taken the universe to get us to the point that we are at today, the world that we take for granted. It has spent 13.7 billion years to build this perfect Earth," she said.

"I'm pretty sure there are habitable planets in every galaxy. We just haven't found them yet."