Tuesday, October 11, 2022

VV 191 Galaxy Pair

The background of this Webb and Hubble composite image of galaxy pair VV 191 is black. Two large, very bright galaxies dominate the center of the image. The elliptical galaxy at left is extremely bright at its circular core, with dimmer white light extending to its transparent circular edges. At right is a bright spiral galaxy. It also has a bright white core, but has red and light purple spiral arms that start at the center and turn clockwise going outward. They end in faint red and appear to overlap the elliptical galaxy at left. Throughout the scene are a range of distant galaxies, the majority of which are very tiny and red, appearing as splotches.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, R. Windhorst (Arizona State University), W. Keel (University of Alabama), S. Wyithe (University of Melbourne, Australia), and the JWST PEARLS Team