Free Astronomy Magazine January-February 2025

7 ASTRO PUBLISHING S tare deeply at these galaxies. They appear as if blood is pump- ing through the top of a flesh- free face. The long, ghastly “stare” of their searing eye-like cores shines out into the supreme cosmic dark- ness. It’s good fortune that looks can be deceiving. These galaxies have only grazed one another to date, with the smaller spi- ral on the left, cataloged as IC 2163, ever so slowly “creeping” behind NGC 2207, the spiral galaxy at right, millions of years ago. The pair’s macabre colors [see page 8] represent a combination of mid- infrared light from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope with visible and ultraviolet light from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Look for potential evidence of their “light scrape” in the shock fronts, where material from the galaxies may have slammed together. These lines represented in brighter red, in- cluding the “eyelids,” may cause the appearance of the galaxies’ bulging, vein-like arms. The galaxies’ first pass may have also distorted their delicately curved arms, pulling out tidal extensions in several places. The diffuse, tiny spiral arms between IC 2163’s core and its far left arm may be an example of this activity. Even more tendrils look like they’re hanging between the galaxies’ cores. Another extension “drifts” off the top of the larger galaxy, forming a thin, semi-transparent arm that practically runs off screen. Both galaxies have high star forma- tion rates, like innumerable individ- ual hearts fluttering all across their arms. Each year, the galaxies pro- duce the equivalent of two dozen new stars that are the size of the Sun. Our Milky Way galaxy only forms the equivalent of two or three new Sun-like stars per year. Both galaxies have also hosted seven known supernovae in recent T he James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared image of galaxies IC 2163 and NGC 2207 recalls the iciness of long-dead bones mixed with eerie vapors. Two large luminous “eyes” lie at the galaxies’ cores, and gauzy spiral arms reach out into the vast distances of space. [NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI]