The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a massive 123-megapixel mosaic image of the Tarantula Nebula that stretches 240 light-years across.
that stretches 240 light-years across and includes tens of thousands of never-before-seen young stars that were not visible with previous telescopes.
The Webb Team explains that scattered among those blue stars are still-embedded stars which appear red and are yet to emerge from what they describe as a “dusty cocoon” of the nebula. “To the upper left of the cluster of young stars, and the top of the nebula’s cavity, an older star prominently displays NIRCam’s distinctive eight diffraction spikes, an artifact of the telescope’s structure. Following the top central spike of this star upward, it almost points to a distinctive bubble in the cloud. Young stars still surrounded by dusty material are blowing this bubble, beginning to carve out their own cavity,” the Webb team continues.
“In this light, the young hot stars of the cluster fade in brilliance, and glowing gas and dust come forward. Abundant hydrocarbons light up the surfaces of the dust clouds, shown in blue and purple. Much of the nebula takes on a more ghostly, diffuse appearance because mid-infrared light is able to show more of what is happening deeper inside the clouds.
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