Courtesy: NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI
Some stars save the best for last.
The fainter star at the center of this scene has been sending out rings of gas and dust for thousands of years in all directions, and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope revealed for the first time that this star is covered in dust.
Two cameras aboard Webb captured the last image of this planetary nebula, cataloged as NGC 3132 and known informally as the Southern Ring Nebula. It is approximately 2,500 light years away.
The Web will allow astronomers to delve into much more detail about planetary nebulae like this — clouds of gas and dust ejected from dying stars. Understanding which molecules are present and where they are in the shells of gas and dust will help researchers refine their knowledge of these objects.
This observation shows the South Ring Nebula almost face-on, but if we could rotate it to see it edge-on, its three-dimensional shape would look more clearly like two bowls placed together at the bottom, opening from each other with a large hole in the center.
Two stars that are locked in a tight orbit shape the local landscape. Webb’s infrared images show new details in this complex system. The stars – and their layers of light – are visible in the Webb Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image on the left, while the Webb Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) image on the right shows for the first time that the second star is surrounded by dust. The brighter star is in an earlier stage of its stellar evolution and is likely to eject its own planetary nebula in the future.
Meanwhile, the brighter star affects the appearance of the nebula. As the pair continue to orbit each other, they “stir the pot” of gas and dust, causing asymmetric patterns.
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Each shell represents an episode in which the fainter star loses some of its mass. The widest envelopes of gas toward the outer regions of the image were discarded earlier. The closest to the star are the most recent. Tracking these discharges gives researchers a glimpse into the history of the system.
Observations made with NIRCam also reveal extremely fine beams of light around the planetary nebula. Starlight from the central stars streams out where there are holes in the gas and dust—like sunlight through gaps in a cloud.
Because planetary nebulae have existed for tens of thousands of years, observing a nebula is like watching a movie in extreme slow motion. Each envelope bulged by the star allows researchers to precisely measure the gas and dust it contains.
As the star ejects shells of material, dust and molecules form within them – changing the landscape even as the star continues to eject material. This dust will eventually enrich the regions around it, expanding into what is known as the interstellar medium. And because it is so long-lived, the dust can eventually travel through space for billions of years and become incorporated into a new star or planet.
In thousands of years, these delicate layers of gas and dust will dissipate into the surrounding space.
Image: Hubble Spots Interstellar Interaction More info: webbtelescope.org/news/first-images
Citation: Webb captures dying star’s final ‘performance’ in fine detail (2022 July 12) Retrieved July 12, 2022 from
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