News Desk (AFP)
Washington, United States ● Wed, September 14, 2022 2022-09-14 10:55 0 653438bc42be6680ce39d10d73291631 2 Science and Technology James-Webb-Space-Telescope,US,NASA,nebula,Science
The wall of dense gas and dust resembles a massive winged creature, its glowing maw illuminated by a bright star as it soars through the cosmic filaments.
An international research team released the first images of the Orion Nebula captured with the James Webb Space Telescope on Monday, leaving astronomers “gobsmacked”.
The stellar nursery is located in the constellation Orion, 1,350 light-years from Earth, in a similar environment in which our own solar system was born more than 4.5 billion years ago.
Astronomers are interested in the region to better understand what happened during the first million years of our planetary evolution.
The images were obtained as part of the Early Release Science program and involved more than 100 scientists from 18 countries, with institutions including France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Western University in Canada and the University of Michigan.
“We are impressed by the stunning images of the Orion Nebula,” Western University astrophysicist Els Peeters said in a statement.
“These new observations allow us to better understand how massive stars transform the cloud of gas and dust in which they are born,” he added.
The nebulae are obscured by large amounts of dust that made it impossible to observe with visible light telescopes, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, Webb’s predecessor.
Webb, however, operates primarily in the infrared spectrum, penetrating dust.
This revealed numerous spectacular structures, up to the scale of 40 AU, or the size of our solar system.
These include dense filaments of matter, which could give rise to new generations of stars, as well as forming star systems consisting of a central protostar surrounded by a disk of dust and gas, in which planets form.
“We hope to understand the entire cycle of star birth,” said Edwin Bergin, a professor of astronomy at the University of Michigan and a member of the international research team.
“In this image we are observing this cycle where the first generation of stars is essentially radiating the material for the next generation. The incredible structures we observe will detail how the feedback cycle of star birth occurs in our galaxy and more beyond”.
Webb is the most powerful space telescope ever built, with a 6.5-meter (more than 21-foot) primary mirror made up of 18 gold-coated hexagonal segments, as well as a five-layer sunshade the size of a runway. tennis .