JO204, a “jellyfish galaxy” situated 600 million light-years away in the constellation Sextans, features bright tendrils of gas that look like jellyfish tentacles. Captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, this image is part of a series of Pictures of the Week highlighting jellyfish galaxies. These galaxies are crucibles for star formation due to an astronomical process called ram pressure stripping. As the galaxies move against the intergalactic medium, their loosely bound gas is stripped away, causing the colder and denser gas to collapse and form new stars in the galaxy’s tendrils. (Cropped view. See full image below.) Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Gullieuszik and the GASP team

References:

“UV and Hα HST observations of 6 GASP jellyfish galaxies” by Marco Gullieuszik, Eric Giunchi, Bianca M. Poggianti, Alessia Moretti, Claudia Scarlata, Daniela Calzetti, Ariel Werle, Anita Zanella, Mario Radovich, Callum Bellhouse, Daniela Bettoni, Andrea Franchetto, Jacopo Fritz, Yara L. Jaffé, Sean McGee, Matilde Mingozzi, Alessando Omizzolo, Stephanie Tonnesen, Marc Verheijen and Benedetta Vulcani, 7 March 2023, The Astrophysical Journal.
DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/acb59b

“HST imaging of star-forming clumps in 6 GASP ram-pressure stripped galaxies” by Eric Giunchi, Marco Gullieuszik, Bianca M. Poggianti, Alessia Moretti, Ariel Werle, Claudia Scarlata, Anita Zanella, Benedetta Vulcani and Daniela Calzetti, The Astrophysical Journal.
arXiv:2302.10615