Spectacular new images from the James Webb Space Telescope on Monday show the Orion Nebula, whose clump of gas and stellar dust form an enormous winged creature with a glowing star at its center.
Located 1,350 light-years from Earth, this celestial object appears to constitute an environment similar to the one in which our solar system was born 4.5 billion years ago.
A better understanding of space.
The capture of these images is part of one of James Webb’s priority observation programs and involved more than a hundred scientists from 18 countries, with the help of the CNRS of France, the Western University of Canada and the University of Michigan.
“We are impressed by the spectacular 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 clouds of gas and dust in which they were born.”
The nebulae are obscured by large amounts of dust that make them impossible to see in visible light with telescopes like Hubble, James Webb’s predecessor. The latter has tools that capture infrared light from the cosmos and allow you to see through these layers of dust.
Source: BFM TV
