#planetary nebula

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope captured this near-infrared view of the PMR 1 "Exposed Cranium" nebula using its NIRCam instrument. More stars and background galaxies shine through in this near-infrared light, and the dark center lane that gives the nebula its distinctive brain-like appearance is especially noticeable here.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

This new image of a portion of the Helix Nebula from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope highlights comet-like knots shaped by fierce stellar winds and layers of gas and dust shed off by a dying star interacting with its surrounding environment. Webb’s image also shows the stark transition between the hottest gas to the coolest gas as the shell expands out from the central white dwarf.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

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.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has taken the most detailed image of planetary nebula NGC 1514 to date thanks to its unique mid-infrared observations. Webb shows its rings as intricate clumps of dust. It’s also easier to see holes punched through the bright pink central region.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Michael Ressler (NASA-JPL), David Jones (IAC)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has observed the well-known Ring Nebula in unprecedented detail. Formed by a star throwing off its outer layers as it runs out of fuel, the Ring Nebula is an archetypal planetary nebula. Also known as M57 and NGC 6720, it is relatively close to Earth at roughly 2,500 light-years away. This new image from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) provides unprecedented spatial resolution and spectral sensitivity. For example, the intricate details of the filament structure of the inner ring are particularly visible in this dataset. There are some 20,000 dense globules in the nebula, which are rich in molecular hydrogen. In contrast, the inner region shows very hot gas. The main shell contains a thin ring of enhanced emission from carbon-based molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Roughly ten concentric arcs are located just beyond the outer edge of the main ring. The arcs are thought to originate from the interaction of the central star with a low-mass companion orbiting at a distance comparable to that between the Earth and Pluto. In this way, nebulae like the Ring Nebula reveal a kind of astronomical archaeology, as astronomers study the nebula to learn about the star that created it.

Image Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, M. Barlow (UCL), N. Cox (ACRI-ST), R. Wesson (Cardiff University)

Webb's image traces the star's scattered outflows that have reached farther into the cosmos. Most of the molecular gas that lies outside the band of cooler gas is also cold. It is also far clumpier, consisting of dense knots of molecular gas that form a halo around the central stars. By accounting for the temperatures and gas contents in both areas, inside and outside the band, and by combining Webb's data with precise measurements from other observatories, researchers were able to create far more accurate models to demonstrate when gas was ejected by the central star. What about the third star that is visible at the lower-right edge of the band within the nebula? From Webb's vantage point, it appears within the scene, but isn't part of the nebula itself.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Orsola De Marco (Macquarie University)

The bright star at the center of NGC 3132, the Southern Ring Nebula, plays a supporting role in sculpting the nebula's rings — a dimmer companion star hidden along one of its diffraction spikes is the true source, having ejected at least eight layers of gas and dust over thousands of years. Webb's near-infrared view also reveals countless background galaxies through the nebula's transparent regions.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI