29/07/2025
The Cosmic Owl: A Breathtaking Galactic Collision Unfolding 8 Billion Light-Years Away
Far across the cosmos, 8 billion light-years from Earth, a rare and spectacular event is unfolding one that astronomers have nicknamed the “Cosmic Owl.” This celestial marvel captures the moment when two ring galaxies collide in a dramatic, head-on encounter. The result? A glowing, owl-like face in space, with two massive star-forming rings, each spanning 26,000 light-years, forming the “eyes,” and an overlapping zone at the center forming the “beak.”
These rings were forged in the aftermath of a high-speed galactic plunge when one galaxy passed directly through another, sending out ripples of gravitational energy and compressing interstellar gas into hotbeds of star formation. This cosmic crash is more than a visual spectacle it’s a window into the violent, creative processes that shape galaxies in the early universe.
Both galaxies host active galactic nuclei (AGN) supermassive black holes that are actively feeding and unleashing colossal amounts of energy. One of them is even firing twin radio jets, with one jet slamming directly into the merging region. This impact has likely triggered an intense starburst, a reservoir of cold molecular gas, and shock-heated plasma, all converging at the beak-like center of the system. The discovery was made in the COSMOS field and studied in detail using cutting-edge observatories like JWST, ALMA, and the Very Large Array (VLA) making it a textbook example of how galactic collisions and black hole feedback can reshape the cosmos.
Credit: Observational data courtesy of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), and NRAO’s Very Large Array; discovery within the COSMOS field, published July 2025.