‘Stephan’s Quintet’ captured by the ‘James Webb Space Telescope’. Provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)The James Webb Space Telescope’s space image released by NASA on the 12th (local time) also includes ‘Stephan’s Quintet’ in the constellation Pegasus, 290 million light-years away.
Discovered in 1877, the Stefan quintet has attracted the attention of space scientists because it can see galaxies collide and combine. The Stefan quintet was named to mean that five galaxies come together to form a beautiful landscape.
Of these, four galaxies are bound by gravity close to each other and repeatedly move closer and further away. The far left galaxy is actually a distant galaxy. Four galaxies are regarding 290 million light-years from Earth, and one galaxy is 40 million light-years away.
NASA explains that the galaxy is relatively close compared to other distant galaxies billions of light-years away, which might provide many clues for studying galaxies.
The quintet serves as a laboratory for studying the fundamental processes of how interacting galaxies trigger star formation with each other and how the gases in galaxies are perturbed.