He James Webb surprises again with fascinating images of the Universe. In its most recent milestone, the telescope sent a series of images of the Ring Nebula, with unprecedented resolution. Thanks to its power, it is now possible to access unprecedented details of this formation generated from the remains of a decomposing star.
The new observations of the Ring Nebula They were conducted by scientists from NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency. “When we saw these images, we were amazed at the amount of detail they contain,” he commented in a statement Roger Wesson, a researcher at Cardiff University who participated in the study.
Also known as Messier 57 and NGC 6720, the donut-shaped Nebula is located about 2,500 light-years from Earth. That’s a relatively close distance in cosmic terms. Regardless of this, its presence has attracted both specialists and astronomy enthusiasts, who under certain conditions can observe it in our sky through ordinary telescopes.
The Ring Nebula “naked”, thanks to the James Webb Telescope
Photographs captured by the advanced telescope show never-before-seen details of the Ring Nebula. This step is not trivial, considering that this formation is discovered almost 250 years ago.
As we noted, the breakthrough comes courtesy of the James Webb, which began operating about a year ago, some 1.6 million kilometers from Earth. With its infrared sensors, this equipment shows aspects that transcend the capacity of our eyes and previously available scientific instruments, even the most powerful ones.
In that order, as noted Space, the now released images of the Ring Nebula have never-before-seen resolution and spectral sensitivity. With the new data, it is possible to observe the interior filamentous structure, in addition to reviewing the exterior regions, in which ten concentric arcs can be glimpsed.
Unpublished details of the Messier 57 Nebula
“These arcs must have formed roughly every 280 years, as the central star shed its outer layers. When a single star becomes a planetary nebula, there is no process that we know of that takes that kind of time period. Instead , these rings suggest that there must be a companion star in the system. It orbits as far from the center as Pluto does from our Sun,” Wesson said.
Otherwise, the center of the Ring Nebula appears empty at first zoom. However, experts note that it is littered with lower-density material that spreads out and away. In this regard, the European Space Agency points out that a shape similar to that of a ball fitted into the central hole is created in that space.
“No other telescope had sufficient sensitivity and resolution to discover these subtle effects”, stressed the specialist from the Welsh university. The advances are as evident as they are relevant: the findings of this species were not possible with the Hubble Space Telescope. That equipment has been in operation for more than three decades and is capable of observing only in visible and ultraviolet light.
5 facts about the nebula photographed by James Webb
- The Ring Nebula is located in Lyra, a small constellation “dominated” by its largest star, called Vega.
- It was discovered in 1779 by the French astronomer Charles Messier, who along with colleagues came across it while following the trajectory of a comet in that constellation.
- It is one of the best known nebulae: It is often used as an example of this kind of objects in space.
- It has an inclination of 30 degrees with respect to its axis; and it follows that it approaches the Earth gradually.
- The main ring is colorful: it is made up of gas that is ejected by a dying star at its center, which is about to become a white dwarf (its final evolutionary stage).
Finally, it should be mentioned that the new images of the Ring Nebula They are different from those that were disclosed long ago. On that occasion, scientists from the JWST Ring Nebula Project detailed more discoveries about that formation. In that case, they also used the telescope’s NIRCam instrument, a near-infrared camera.