The James Webb Space Telescope captured this unusual image of a galactic question mark more than 1,500 light years from Earth. What is it? That's the, um, cosmic question.
"It is probably a distant galaxy, or potentially interacting galaxies (their interactions may have caused the distorted question mark-shape)," researchers from Baltimore's Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore told Space.com:
Matt Caplan, an assistant professor of physics at Illinois State University, told Space.com that the object might be two galaxies merging. "The two distinct features could easily be merging galaxies in the background, with the upper part of the question mark being part of a larger galaxy getting tidally disrupted," Caplan said. "Given the color of some of the other background galaxies, this doesn't seem like the worst explanation. Despite how chaotic mergers are, double lobed objects with curvy tails extending away from them are very typical."
