- NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured a star preparing to die in stunning detail.
- This image shows a rare Wolf-Rayet star ejecting its outer layers during its pre-supernova stage.
- It’s creating dust that could one day collapse into new stars and planets – a key cosmic mystery.
Stunning photos from the James Webb Space Telescope capture a rare sight. A giant star on the brink of death spins and explodes in a supernova.
NASA shared the image on Tuesday. It reveals that the star is ejecting its outer material, slowly building a knotted layered halo of gas and dust around it.
As the ejected gas moves away from the star, it cools and forms clouds, or “nebulae,” that glow with Webb’s infrared camera. That’s what makes the pink clouds in the image.
These emissions are the rotation of the star towards its final explosion, a supernova.
supernova remnant. The supernova in the picture is not the star Webb photographed.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/CXC/SAO
This pre-supernova stage of a star’s life is called Wolf-Rayet. Some stars go through a very short Wolf-Rayet phase before they die, so this type of star is rarely seen.
The Wolf-Rayet star is “one of the brightest, most massive, and most rapidly detectable stars known.” NASA.
Called WR 124, the star is located 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. 30 times the mass of the Sun. It ejected 10 suns worth of material to create the glowing nebula in the picture.
Webb helps investigate dusty cosmic mysteries
That cosmic dust is of great interest to astronomers. New stars, new planets, and everything in them.
New dusty matter is born from an old, dying star that explodes and releases everything into space, a feat of cosmic great recycling.
An artist’s conception of the James Webb Space Telescope.
NASA GSFC/CIL/Adriana Manrique Gutierrez
According to NASA, there is more dust in the universe than astronomers theories can explain. Webb could help solve the mystery by finding more clues about the origin of dust, including supernovae and Wolf-Rayet stars like this one.
The telescope’s powerful infrared capabilities make it a far superior dust research tool than any previous observatory.
“Before Webb, dust-loving astronomers were investigating questions about dust formation in environments like WR 124, and whether dust particles survived supernovae and were large and abundant enough to have a major impact on dust overall. We didn’t have enough details for the budget,” NASA wrote in the photo release. “These questions can now be explored with real data.”
