What looks like craggy mountains in moonlight is actually the edge of NGC 3324, a young star-forming region in the Carina Nebula, captured in infrared by Webb's NIRCam. Nicknamed the "Cosmic Cliffs," the region is the edge of a gigantic cavity carved by intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from hot, massive young stars, revealing hundreds of previously hidden stars and background galaxies for the first time.
Image Credit:NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
About the Object
- R.A. Position
- 10:36:59.0
- Dec. Position
- -58:37:0.0
- Constellation
- Carina
- Distance
- 7,600 light-years (2,300 parsecs)
- Dimensions
- 7.3 arcminutes across (16 light-years)
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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope's mid-infrared image shows four coiled shells of dust around a pair of Wolf-Rayet stars known as Apep for the first time.
Image Credit: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Science: Yinuo Han (Caltech), Ryan White (Macquarie University); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
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To celebrate NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s third year of highly productive science, astronomers used the telescope to scratch beyond the surface of the Cat’s Paw Nebula (NGC 6334), a massive, local star-forming region. This area is of great interest to scientists, having been subject to previous study by NASA’s Hubble and retired Spitzer space telescopes, as they seek to understand the multiple steps required for a turbulent molecular cloud to transition to stars. With its near-infrared capabilities and sharp resolution, the telescope “clawed” back a portion of a singular “toe bean,” revealing a subset of mini toe bean-reminiscent structures composed of gas, dust, and young stars. Webb’s view reveals a chaotic scene still in development: Massive young stars are carving away at nearby gas and dust, while their bright starlight is producing a bright nebulous glow represented in blue. This is only a chapter in the region’s larger story. The disruptive young stars, with their relatively short lifespans and luminosity, will eventually quench the local star formation process. The Cat’s Paw Nebula is located approximately 4,000 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. To dive deeper into Webb’s image of the Cat’s Paw, embark on a narrated tour, get closer to the image, or read the press release. Additionally, learn more about Webb’s three years of science observations.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
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This image by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) features the central region of the Chamaeleon I dark molecular cloud, which resides 630 light years away. The cold, wispy cloud material (blue, center) is illuminated in the infrared by the glow of the young, outflowing protostar Ced 110 IRS 4 (orange, upper left). The light from numerous background stars, seen as orange dots behind the cloud, can be used to detect ices in the cloud, which absorb the starlight passing through them. An international team of astronomers has reported the discovery of diverse ices in the darkest regions of a cold molecular cloud measured to date by studying this region. This result allows astronomers to examine the simple icy molecules that will be incorporated into future exoplanets, while opening a new window on the origin of more complex molecules that are the first step in the creation of the building blocks of life.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA