A Dance of Galaxies

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A Dance of Galaxies

Monika Luabeya

Dec 22, 2025 Image Article

These two galaxies are named NGC 4490 and NGC 4485, and they’re located about 24 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs). They are the closest known interacting dwarf-dwarf galaxy system where astronomers have observed the interactions between them, as well as been able to resolve the stars within. ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Adamo (Stockholm University), G. Bortolini, and the FEAST JWST team

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured two nearby dwarf galaxies interacting with each other in this image released on Dec. 2, 2025. Dwarf galaxies can give us insights into galaxies in the early universe, which were thought to have less mass than galaxies like the Milky Way, and also contain a lot of gas, relatively few stars, and typically have small amounts of elements heavier than helium. Observing dwarf galaxies merge can tell us how galaxies billions of years ago might have grown and evolved.

Read more about this cosmic pair.

Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Adamo (Stockholm University), G. Bortolini, and the FEAST JWST team