NASA’s Webb telescope has photographed a stellar nursery known as the Tarantula Nebula in exquisite detail, revealing previously unseen features that advance scientific understanding, the agency announced Tuesday.
Officially designated as 30 Doradus, this region of space is marked by dusty filaments that resemble the legs of a hairy spider and has long been a favorite among astronomers interested in star formation.
Due to Webb’s high resolution infrared detectors, thousands of young stars, distant background galaxies, and the intricate structure of the nebula’s gas and dust structures were revealed for the first time.
Webb functions largely in the infrared spectrum because light from distant cosmic objects has been stretched to this wavelength by the expansion of the universe.
Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), the primary imager of the telescope, discovered the cavity in the middle of the nebula was hollowed out by stellar winds emerging from a cluster of massive young stars, which appear as faint blue spots.
The Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) of the Webb Space Telescope, which analyzes light patterns to determine the composition of objects, captured a newborn star releasing a cloud of dust from its surroundings.
The same star was previously believed to be in a later stage of formation, with its dusty bubble already largely cleared.
The Mid-infrared Instrument (MIRI), which employs longer wavelengths of infrared to penetrate dust grains that absorb or scatter shorter wavelengths, also captured images of the region.
This resulted in the dimming of the hot stars and the clarification of the cooler regions, revealing previously unseen spots of light within the stellar nursery, which are indicative of protostars that are still developing mass.
The Tarantula Nebula is of interest to astronomers due to its similar chemical makeup to enormous star-forming regions seen a few billion years after the Big Bang, during the “cosmic noon” when star creation was at its zenith.
At a distance of only 161 000 light-years, Tarantula is an easily observable example of this time of cosmic expansion.
Webb should also offer scientists with the ability to observe distant galaxies from the real epoch of cosmic noon and compare these findings to those of Tarantula in order to determine parallels and differences.
Astronomers are sure that the Webb satellite telescope, which has been operational since July, will usher in a new era of discovery.
© Agence France-Presse