NASA’s Webb Space Telescope has revealed the sharpest images yet of a portion of a horse-shaped nebula. The Horsehead Nebula is located in the Orion constellation and is 1,300 light-years away. Webb's new glamour shots released Monday captured the Horsehead's “mane” in finer detail, illuminating its clouds of gas and dust.
This image shows three views of the Horsehead Nebula. Image left, released in November 2023, features the Horsehead Nebula as seen in visible light by ESA’s Euclid telescope, which has contributions from NASA. The second image, middle, shows a view of the Horsehead Nebula in near-infrared light from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in 2013. The third image, right, features a new view of the Horsehead Nebula from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam instrument.
Discovered over a century ago, its nickname derives from its striking appearance — a wispy pillar of gas and dust that resembles a horse rearing its head. Webb’s latest infrared images released Monday captured the top of Horsehead in greater detail, illuminating clouds of chilly hydrogen molecules and soot-like chemicals. These glamour shots can help refine astronomers’ understanding of the nebula, which acts as a nursery for big stars to brew.The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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