Washington, United States ● Wed, Sep 14, 2022 2022-09-14 10:55 0 653438bc42be6680ce39d10d73291631 2 Science & Tech James-Webb-Space-Telescope,US,NASA,Nebule
The wall of dense gas and dust resembles a huge winged creature, its glowing maw illuminated by a bright star as it soars through cosmic filaments. An international research team on Monday unveiled the first images of the Orion Nebula captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, leaving astronomers “bewildered”. The stellar nursery is located in the constellation Orion, 1,350 light-years from Earth, in a similar environment in which our own solar system was born more than 4.5 billion years ago. Astronomers are interested in the region to better understand what happened during the first million years of our planetary evolution. The images were obtained as part of the Early Release Science program and involved more than 100 scientists in 18 countries, with institutions including the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Western University in Canada and the University of Michigan. “We are blown away by the breathtaking 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 cloud of gas and dust in which they are born,” he added. The nebulae are shrouded in large amounts of dust that have made observation impossible with visible light telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope, Webb’s predecessor. However, Webb operates primarily in the infrared spectrum, penetrating dust. This revealed numerous spectacular structures, up to the scale of 40 AU, or the size of our solar system. These include dense filaments of matter, which could give birth to new generations of stars, as well as the formation of star systems consisting of a central protostar surrounded by a disk of dust and gas, in which planets form. “We hope to gain an understanding of the entire cycle of star birth,” said Edwin Bergin, chair of astronomy at the University of Michigan and a member of the international research team. “In this picture we’re looking at this cycle where the first generation of stars essentially radiates the material for the next generation. The incredible structures we observe will detail how the feedback cycle of star birth occurs in our galaxy and beyond.” Webb is the most powerful space telescope ever built, with a 6.5-meter (more than 21 feet) primary mirror made up of 18 hexagonal, gold-coated sections, as well as a five-layer sun shield the size of a tennis court . .
