JWST has found a jellyfish galaxy: What is it
Technology
JWST has spotted a potential jellyfish galaxy, COSMOS2020-635829, using its powerful infrared camera.
This distant galaxy stands out with a bright disk and a long tail dotted with blue star-forming clumps—kind of like cosmic jellyfish tentacles.
Each knot is a new star
The tail contains young, compact regions of intense star formation (no age estimate is given in the source article).
Each clump is massive (about 100 million times the mass of our Sun) and forms new stars at a steady pace.
The knots might become galaxies 1 day
You can't see this galaxy directly because it's so far away, but JWST's images are shown in the paper in The Astrophysical Journal if you're curious.
Scientists think these starry knots might one day become faint galaxies of their own.