Newborn stars still wrapped in cocoons of dust and gas have been revealed in a new image of the famous Orion Nebula captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.
The photo was taken on Sunday (September 11th) with James Webb Space TelescopeNIRCam’s NIRCam tool reveals unprecedented details of Orion NebulaIt is a known star-forming region that can be seen even with the naked eye. The fine structures in the dense dust and gas clouds that make up the nebula in the foreground of the image appear much more clearly than in the previous image taken by Webb’s predecessor, Hubble Space Telescope.
The nebula that can be found in the night sky in Orion Just south of the Archer Belt, it features a wall of dense gas and dust known as the Orion Bar. Inside this strip are active photons from stars In the Trapezium cluster (in the upper right corner of the image) mix with a molecular cloud, resulting in complex ionizing reactions. In the center of the band, the star Theta2 Orionis A (or θ2 Ori) shines brightly with distinctive diffraction spikes that are a side effect of the James Webb Space Telescope’s mirror design.
Related: Marvel at the largest image of the universe in the James Webb Space Telescope so far
The photo also reveals newborn stars at different stages of their development. Towards the upper left corner of Theta2 Orionis A, inside the bar, is a young star forming inside a sphere, a shroud of dust and gas that has collapsed together under the influence of gravitational force to give rise to the new star. On the right side, under the trapezoid’s mass, is a star wrapped in a cocoon of planet-forming material that is eroded by the strong ultraviolet rays of the trapezoid’s stars.
The star in this image, called HST-10, is one of about 180 young stars with “photo-evaporation disks” detected in the Orion Nebula, scientists said. statement.
The image, created by stacking multiple images taken with several different filters, reveals twisted filaments of hydrocarbon-rich dust and gas.
Comparison image taken with Spitzer Space TelescopeNASA’s former Infrared Observatory highlights the technological advances made with the James Webb Space Telescope and the impressive level of detail that the new telescope provides.
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