Five hundred million years ago, two massive spiral galaxies collided. Their clouds of gas and dust mingled like smoke, sparking a burst of star formation.
This merger event created Galaxy NGC 3256. Its baby stars shine in infrared light, the Webb telescope’s specialty.
NGC 3256 resides about 120 million light-years away and is roughly the size of our own Milky Way. The story of this galaxy can still be found in two long tendrils of dust and stars — one extending towards the upper left and the other towards the lower right.
These tendrils, called tidal tails, are studded with the young stars formed from the gas and dust of the galaxy collision: https://esawebb.org/images/potm2306a/
Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, L. Armus, A. Evans
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