The achievements and scope of the wonderful The James Webb Space Telescope has arrived to give us a much more impressive look into the depths of the universe.. We have already seen what this tool shared by NASA, ESA, JAXA and the Canadian Space Agency is capable of. But it never ceases to amaze us that he has now recorded the death of a massive star on his lenses.
It is the Ring Nebula. Recognized for its exquisite beauty, it is located approximately about 2,600 light years away. Its captivating structure was initially mistaken for a planet in the 1770s.
However, with the advancement of technology and astronomical knowledge, it was discovered that it was not a lonely planet, but rather a wonderful dance of dust and gas in the constellation Lyra.
The analyzes carried out with data from both space observatories specify that the nebula has several rings in which there is an enormous amount of important chemical elements for the formation of stars and planets.
The images that NASA converts into video were captured by the NIRCam instrument of the James Webb Space Telescope, in the framework of observations made by astronomers from the United Kingdom and France. By tuning the infrared, Scientists have been able to perceive the hot gas that makes up the nebula, as well as the star that resides in its center and is responsible for its creation.
a spectacular look
The astronomy expert, identified on social networks as Universo Recondito, who always analyzes the universe on his X (or Twitter) account, compares how the Ring Nebula was captured with two different instruments by James Webb himself.
“This side-by-side comparison shows the Southern Ring Nebula in near-infrared light, on the left, and in mid-infrared light, on the right, from the Webb Telescope. The images look very different because NIRCam and MIRI collect different wavelengths of light,” he explained.