Launched on December 25, 2021, and bringing its first images to us in July 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope continues to appear before us with dazzling images that leave our mouths open. The telescope has now stumbled upon something rather strange in the depths of the universe.
The new image captured by Webb appears, at first glance, again as an enormous space photograph. However, when we examine it more carefully, we come across something very familiar in one chapter.
James Webb’s image has something like a question mark
First shared last week, the image features an actively forming star pair Herbig-Haro 46/47, located 1,470 light-years away. There is a shape that looks like a question mark in the lower middle part of this photo.
You can see the enlarged version of this eerie and enigmatic cosmic question mark in the image above. As such, this shape left the mouths of many people looking at the photo open. So, what is the reason behind the formation of this sign? Scientists have several guesses.
Experts at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), responsible for Webb’s operations, say the question mark could be a distant galaxy or a pair of interacting galaxies. If so, gravitational forces may have affected these galactic structures, creating a question mark-like shape.
On the other hand, Matt Caplan, a physics professor at Illinois State University, who spoke to Space.com, supports the predictions of other experts, saying that this shape is probably two galaxies in the process of merging.
We have encountered such quirks in images from space before. For example, in a photograph taken in 2022, it was seen that the Sun was almost laughing.
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