James Webb discovers fingerprint-shaped dust rings in space

POT published an amazing image of the telescope James Webb “fingerprints” in space.

The image shows 17 concentric dust rings emanating from a pair of stars more than 5,000 light-years away from Earth.

Space imprint

These rings are produced by the stars in Wolf Rayet 140. Each ring was created when two stars approached each other and their stellar winds (the streams of gas they blast out into space) met, compressing the gas and creating dust.

“We’re looking at more than a century of dust production in this system,” said Ryan Lau, NOIRLab NSF astronomer and lead author of a new study of the system, published today in the journal. Astronomy of nature. “The image also shows how sensitive this telescope is. Previously, we could only see two dust rings with ground-based telescopes. Now we see at least 17 of them.”

Star Wolf Rayet it is an O-type star, born with a mass of at least 25 times that of our Sun, approaching the end of its life, when it is likely to collapse and form a black hole. These stars generate powerful winds that throw huge amounts of gas into space. Star wolf-Rayet this particular pair may have lost more than half of their original mass through this process.

The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) detects the longest infrared wavelengths, which means it can often see colder objects, including dust rings, than other Webb instruments.

From wind to dust

POT explains how dust is formed from the winds of stars.

“The most common element found in stars, hydrogen, cannot form dust on its own. But because the stars Wolf Rayet they lose so much mass that they also throw out more complex elements, usually found deep inside the star, including carbon. The heavy wind elements cool as they travel through space and then contract where the winds of both stars meet, as when two hands knead dough.

The authors of the study believe that WR 140’s winds have also cleared the surrounding area of ​​debris it might otherwise have encountered, which may be why the rings remain so intact rather than smeared or scattered. There are probably more rings that have become so dim and scattered that they don’t even James Webb you can see them in the data.

“Stars wolf-Rayet they may seem exotic compared to our sun, but they may have played a role in the formation of stars and planets. when the star Wolf Rayet clear the area, the blown material can accumulate on the outskirts and become dense enough to form new stars. There is some evidence that the Sun formed in this way.”

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