A cosmic object shaped like a glowing question mark appears in one of the latest images taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and scientists are speculating about what it might be.

The original image, released on July 26, depicted a pair of young stars called Herbig-Haro 46/47. They were found 1,470 light-years away in the constellation Vela, and the stars still appear to be active and closely orbiting each other.

These two have been observed and studied by space and ground-based telescopes since the 1950s, but the highly sensitive Webb Telescope has allowed the highest resolution and most detailed image yet. It has the ability to observe the universe with longer wavelengths of light than other space telescopes.

The Webb Telescope is shedding light on the origins of our universe, but the appearance of this mysterious object in the background of this image leaves more questions than answers. The “cosmic question mark” has not been observed or studied closely, so scientists are not exactly sure of the object’s origin and composition.

“The first thing you can rule out is that this is a star in our Milky Way,” said Matt Kaplan, assistant professor of physics at Illinois State University. “Stars always have these really big spikes, and that’s because stars are point-like. It’s called diffraction basically from the edges of the mirrors and the brackets that support the kind of camera in the middle.”

It could be a merger of two galaxies, possibly billions of light years away, is much further away than Herbig-Haro 46/47, said Christopher Britt, a scientist in training at Space Telescope Science. Institute, which manages the science operations of the Webb Telescope.

There are “many, many galaxies outside our own Milky Way,” Britt said, adding that they “sometimes collide with their nearest neighbors. And when that happens, they can warp into all kinds of different shapes, including a question mark, apparently.”

This is possibly the first time we have seen this particular objectexperts said, but merging galaxies into a question mark-like shape has happened before, including one formed by the Antennae Galaxies in the constellation Corvus.

Furthermore, most galaxies have had many similar interactions like this during their history, Britt said, but they don’t last very long.

This merger is also the ultimate fate of our own galaxy, which will merge with the Andromeda galaxy in about 4 billion years, Britt said, but what shape they will take is unknown.