Stare deeply at these galaxies. They appear as if blood is pumping through the top of a flesh-free face. The long, ghastly ‘stare’ of their searing eye-like cores shines out into the supreme cosmic darkness. These galaxies have only grazed one another so far, with the smaller spiral on the left, catalogued as IC 2163, ever so slowly ‘creeping’ behind NGC 2207, the spiral galaxy on the right, millions of years ago. The pair’s macabre colours represent a combination of mid-infrared light from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope and visible and ultraviolet light from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Look for potential evidence of their ‘light scrape’ in the shock fronts, where material from the galaxies may have slammed together. These lines represented in brighter red, including the ‘eyelids’, may cause the appearance of the galaxies’ bulging, vein-like arms. The galaxies’ first pass may have also distorted their delicately curved arms, pulling out tidal extensions in severa
