NGC 6822
NGC 6822
NGC 6822 is an irregular galaxy. Irregular galaxies have unusual shapes that could be due to a collision between galaxies. Such galaxies usually harbour a mixture of older and younger stars, depending on the properties and composition of the original galaxies. In NGC 6822, the stars contain only a small amount of heavier 'metal elements', which are produced by the stars during their lifetime and are therefore not very common in the early Universe. The NISP instrument will make it possible to study the star formation history of this type of galaxy. In this image, the colours of the stars range from blue (younger stars) to white to yellow and red (older stars) across the entire image.
