#NGC 6072

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s view of planetary nebula NGC 6072 in the near-infrared shows a complex scene of multiple outflows expanding out at different angles from a dying star at the center of the scene. There is one stretching from roughly 11 to 5 o’clock, another from 1 to 7 o’clock, and possibly a third from 12 to 6 o’clock. These outflows push gas toward the equatorial plane, forming a disk that appears to span from 9 to 3 o’clock. Astronomers suspect there is at least one other star interacting with the material cast off by the central dying star, creating the abnormal appearance of this planetary nebula. In this image, the red areas represent cool molecular gas, for example, molecular hydrogen. Read the full image description.

The mid-infrared view of planetary nebula NGC 6072 from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope shows expanding circular shells around the outflows from the dying central star, which astronomers suspect is the pinkish white dot at the center of the image. The longer wavelengths captured by Webb's MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) highlight the dust being cast off by the central dying star. In this image, the blue represents cool molecular gas that is seen in red in the near-infrared image from Webb's NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) due to color mapping.