Astronomers have spotted a rare cosmic phenomenon known as the “Cosmic Owl”, formed by the collision of two ring galaxies. The galaxies, each approximately 26,000 light-years wide, are located about 11 billion light-years away from Earth and collided around 38 million years ago.
Using data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), researchers discovered the galaxy merger in the COSMOS field. The collision triggered a massive burst of star formation, transforming a region into a “stellar nursery” where new stars are rapidly being born.
The symmetry of the Cosmic Owl suggests a head-on collision between two galaxies of similar mass and structure, making it a unique discovery for astronomers. Scientists believe that this collision offers a detailed snapshot of the mechanisms that assemble stellar mass and grow supermassive black holes in the early universe.
This rare phenomenon was discovered using deep imaging and spectroscopy from JWST, ALMA, or VLA, and is expected to remain visible for a long time due to galactic collisions typically lasting several hundred million years.
Source: https://www.ndtv.com/science/cosmic-owl-james-webb-spots-rare-marvel-of-galaxy-collision-8851575