James Webb captures mesmerising swirls of a ‘cosmic tornado’ and a hidden galaxy in space

NASA’s James Webb Telescope Captures Stunning Cosmic Alignment (Image: NASA)

NASA's latest discovery once again proves how incredible space is. A collision between a spiral galaxy and a jet from a young star has been witnessed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a rare astronomical event. It's a "lucky alignment" of two unrelated objects, NASA says.

Powerful jets that penetrate space are often emitted by infant stars. This photo illustrates an infant star's jet exactly aligned with a spiral galaxy in the background. The event, Herbig-Haro 49/50, is in the Chamaeleon constellation approximately 630 light-years away.

In 2006, the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope first observed HH 49/50. Its spiral nature made scientists refer to it as the "Cosmic Tornado" then. But still, no one had an explanation for the foggy object at the tip of the formation.

JWST recently performed a closer look at HH 49/50 with its advanced imaging technology. The long-standing enigma—that the "tornado's" tip is really a distant spiral galaxy—was solved when it revealed sensitive patterns in the star's outflow.

The find was dubbed by NASA "an extraordinary cosmic coincidence." The image is considered by scientists to be one of JWST's most interesting observations to date.