JWST spots most distant jellyfish galaxy to date

Astrophysicists from the University of Waterloo have observed a new jellyfish galaxy, the most distant one of its kind ever captured. Jellyfish galaxies are named for the long, tentacle-like streams that trail behind them. They move quickly through their hot, dense galaxy cluster, and the gas within the cluster acts like a strong wind pushing the jellyfish galaxy’s own gas out the back, forming trails. The technical term for this process is ram-pressure stripping. The Waterloo scientists found this galaxy in deep space data captured by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It is at z = 1.156, meaning we’re seeing it as it was 8.5 billion years ago, when the universe was much younger.