The five galaxies of Stephan’s Quintet, prominently featured at the beginning of the holiday film “It’s a Wonderful Life,” were seen with new eyes by the James Webb Space Telescope.

Located in the northern constellation Pegasus, Stephan’s Quintet consists of four galaxies that are tightly bound — cosmically speaking — about 290 million light-years away. In a coincidence of cosmic alignment, a foreground galaxy lurks on the left of the image about 40 million light-years from Earth.

“With its powerful, infrared vision and extremely high spatial resolution, Webb shows never-before-seen details in this galaxy group,” NASA said in a press release. “Sparkling clusters of millions of young stars and starburst regions of fresh star birth grace the image.

“Sweeping tails of gas, dust and stars are being pulled from several of the galaxies due to gravitational interactions,” NAS A said. “Most dramatically, Webb captures huge shock waves as one of the galaxies, NGC 7318B, smashes through the cluster.”

“This proximity provides astronomers a ringside seat for witnessing the merging and interactions between galaxies that are so crucial to all of galaxy evolution,” NASA said. “Rarely do scientists see in so much detail how interacting galaxies trigger star formation in each other, and how the gas in these galaxies is being disturbed. Stephan’s Quintet is a fantastic ‘laboratory’ for studying these processes fundamental to all galaxies.”