Space photo of the week: Entangled galaxies form cosmic smiley face in new James Webb telescope image

What it is: Arp 107, a pair of interacting galaxies

Where it is: 465 million light-years away, in the constellation Leo Minor

When it was shared: Sept. 18, 2024

Why it's so special: A new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) image has revealed the striking celestial sight of a large spiral galaxy — much like our own Milky Way — interacting with a small elliptical galaxy.

The two galaxies are collectively named Arp 107 because they were first cataloged by American astronomer Halton Arp, whose 1966 "Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies" detailed interacting and merging galaxies in the night sky.

Although it was imaged last year by the Hubble Space Telescope, Arp 107 has now been recaptured using JWST's powerful infrared gaze. This means astronomers can study the two chaotic galaxies in wavelengths of light invisible to Hubble and the human eye.

Proving that sometimes it's not what you look at in the night sky that matters but how you look at it, the new image somewhat resembles a cosmic face. The two galaxy cores become its bright "eyes," while a bridge of stars connecting them forms a semicircular "smile."