Tuesday, November 15, 2022

IC 1623

Webb’s image shows two galaxies appearing to swirl together into a blue and pink mass. Long, blue spiral arms stretch vertically, faint at the edges. Tendrils of hot gas spread horizontally over the blue arms, mainly bright coral pink with many small gold spots of star formation. The center of these merging galaxies is extremely bright, radiating eight large, golden diffraction spikes. The background is black, with many tiny galaxies in orange and blue.
Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, L. Armus & A. Evans