NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured thousands of never-before-seen young stars in a spider-shaped stellar cluster known as the Tarantula Nebula.
The cosmic nursery is officially called 30 Doradus and is located 161,000 light-years away in the galaxy Large Megallan Cloud, which happens to be the largest and brightest star-forming region in the Local Group – the galaxies closest to our Milky Way.
“Take a moment to stare at thousands of never-before-seen young stars in the Tarantula Nebula,” NASA said on Twitter. [The James Webb] reveals details of the nebula’s structure and composition, as well as background galaxies.’
“The Tarantula Nebula gets its name from its dusty filaments. The largest and brightest star-forming region near our galaxy is home to the hottest and most massive stars known!’ This was announced by the space agency.
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“Take a moment to stare at thousands of never-before-seen young stars in the Tarantula Nebula,” NASA said on Twitter. [The James Webb] reveals details of the nebula’s structure and composition, as well as background galaxies.’ Officially called 30 Doradus – but known as the Tarantula Nebula – the star-forming site is located 161,000 light-years away in the galaxy of the Large Megallan Cloud
This nebula gives us information about what star formation might have looked like at its peak in our cosmic history.
Viewed with Webb’s near-infrared (NIRCam) camera, the region resembles the home of a burrowing tarantula lined with its silk. The nebula’s cavity at the center of the NIRCam image appears to be hollowed out by the glowing radiation of a cluster of massive young stars, sparkling pale blue in the image.
Only the densest surrounding areas of the nebula can resist erosion from the strong stellar winds from these stars, forming pillars that appear to point back toward the cluster. These pillars contain forming protostars, or very young stars, that will eventually emerge from their dusty cocoons and, in turn, form the nebula.
The Tarantula Nebula has fascinated astronomers for years because it has a similar chemical composition to the vast star-forming regions seen at the universe’s so-called “cosmic noon” – when the cosmos was only a few billion years old and when star formation was at its peak .
The cosmic region takes on a different appearance when viewed at the longer infrared wavelengths captured by Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). In this image (above), the hot stars are fading and the cooler gas and dust appear to be glowing. Embedded in the star-forming clouds are protostars that are still increasing in mass. Life’s shorter wavelengths are absorbed or scattered by dust grains in the nebula — and don’t reach Webb to be detected
Star-forming regions in the Milky Way do not have the same chemical composition and do not produce at the same super-fast rate as the Tarantula Nebula.
The cosmic region takes on a different appearance when viewed at the longer infrared wavelengths captured by Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).
In this image, the hot stars are fading and the cooler gas and dust seem to be glowing.
Embedded in the star-forming clouds are protostars that are still increasing in mass. Life’s shorter wavelengths are absorbed or scattered by dust grains in the nebula — and don’t reach Webb to be detected — while the longer mid-infrared wavelengths penetrate through that dust, revealing details scientists may not have seen before.
“Despite mankind’s observing of the stars for thousands of years, the star-forming process still holds many mysteries — many of them due to our past inability to get sharp pictures of what’s happening behind the thick clouds of stellar nurseries,” NASA said in a statement.
Just a few days ago, the James Webb captured its first image of an exoplanet just 385 light-years from Earth, revealing incredible detail never seen by the human eye.
The exoplanet known as HIP 65426 is only 15 to 20 million years old, which is much younger than our 4.5 billion year old Earth.
The telescope used its near-infrared camera (NIRCam) and mid-infrared instrument (MIRI), which can block surrounding starlight, to capture epic images of exoplanet HIP 65426.
The alien world was first spotted by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile in 2017, but the long wavelengths were blocked by Earth’s atmosphere.
However, because Webb is floating through space, it has been able to take direct pictures of the planet that astronomers can process to remove starlight and reveal the planet.
NASA said it was a gas giant that didn’t have a rocky surface and therefore couldn’t host life.
“But Webb’s first image of an exoplanet already hints at future opportunities for exploring distant worlds,” NASA said in a statement.
NASA’s James Webb Telescope has captured detailed images of its first exoplanet outside our solar system. The telescope used its powerful technologies to “see” the exoplanets at longer wavelengths that are missed by ground-based telescopes. The exoplanet is only 15 to 20 million years old, which is much younger than our 4.5 billion year old Earth
The “cosmic cliffs” of the Carina Nebula are visible in an image divided horizontally by an undulating line between a cloudscape forming a nebula along the lower part and a comparatively clear upper part, with data from the James Webb – NASA’s Space Telescope
The James Webb Telescope: NASA’s $10 billion telescope was designed to discover light from the earliest stars and galaxies
The James Webb Telescope has been described as a “time machine” that could help unlock the mysteries of our universe.
The telescope will be used to look back to the first galaxies born in the early Universe more than 13.5 billion years ago and to observe the sources of stars, exoplanets and even the moons and planets of our solar system.
The giant telescope, which has already cost more than $7 billion (£5 billion), is believed to be the successor to the Hubble orbiting space telescope
The James Webb Telescope and most of its instruments have an operating temperature of about 40 Kelvin – about minus 387 Fahrenheit (minus 233 degrees Celsius).
It is the largest and most powerful orbital space telescope in the world, able to look back 100 to 200 million years after the Big Bang.
The orbiting infrared observatory is said to be about 100 times more powerful than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope.
NASA considers James Webb to be Hubble’s successor rather than a replacement as the two will be working together for a while.
The Hubble Telescope was launched on April 24, 1990 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
It orbits the Earth at a speed of about 17,000 mph (27,300 km/h) in low Earth orbit at about 340 miles altitude.
