From its perch a million miles away, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is revealing a universe that’s richer and more perplexing than astronomers previously imagined
. Those included the distances to some of the farthest galaxies yet discovered, newly observed ancient star clusters, a cloud of water surrounding Saturn’s moon Enceladus, and symmetric dust shells enveloping a big, blustery star—puffs of particles that are regularly blown out by the star itself.
Shells of cosmic dust appear like tree rings around the star Wolf-Rayet 140 in this JWST image. Wolf-Rayet stars are at an advanced stage of their lifecycles, releasing heavy elements into space, and this one is part of a binary system with an O-type star, one of the most massive star types known.
“All of a sudden, the fog lifts and your heart just beats faster,” he says. “It just takes your breath away. You see nature in incredible colors—and it’s more beautiful than you ever imagined.”Please be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited.: The winding spiral structure of the galaxy IC 5332 is revealed in ultraviolet and visible light captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Dark, dusty regions seem to separate the spiral arms.
“The reason I was so emotionally overwhelmed by it was the recognition that what I’m looking at has always been there—for billions of years—almost an overwhelmingly long time, and yet we hadn’t seen it,” Zurbuchen says. “This is the beginning of a journey into the unknown, with a new set of eyes.”Please be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited.
Composite by X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/PSU/D. Burrows et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI; Millimeter: NRAO/AUI/NSF): Cassiopeia A is the remnant of a once massive star that died in a violent supernova explosion 325 years ago. It consists of a dead star, called a neutron star, and a surrounding shell of material that was blasted off as the star died.
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