NASA's James Webb reveals the "cosmic tornado" that had been hiding a distant spiral galaxy at its tip

In 2006, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope nicknamed Herbig-Haro 49/50 the "Cosmic Tornado" for its helical shape, but couldn't identify a fuzzy object at its tip. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope later resolved it as a distant spiral galaxy, unrelated to the tornado and only aligned with it by chance. The tornado itself, known as Herbig-Haro 49/50, is an outflow from a still-forming star about 625 light-years away. Researchers say that over thousands of years, the tornado will slowly expand and eventually cover the distant galaxy completely. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NASA-JPL, SSC; Visualization: J. DePasquale, L. Hustak, G. Bacon, R. Crawford, D. Kirshenblat, C. Nieves, A. Pagan, F. Summers (STScI)