“James Webb” took a unique photo of the famous Horsehead Nebula (PHOTO)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the clearest infrared images to date of a zoomed-in portion of one of the most distinctive objects in our sky, the Horsehead Nebula.

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These observations show the top of the horse’s mane, or edges, of this iconic nebula in a whole new light, capturing the complexity of the region with unprecedented spatial resolution, EurekAlert reports.

Webb’s new images show part of the sky in the constellation Orion, in the western part of a dense region known as the Orion B molecular cloud. Rising from turbulent waves of dust and gas rises the Horsehead Nebula, also known as Barnard 33, located about 1,300 light-years away years from us,” the publication notes.

The nebula was formed from a collapsing cloud of interstellar material and glows because it is illuminated by a nearby hot star. The gas clouds surrounding Horsehead have already dissipated, but the protruding column is made of denser clumps of material, making it more difficult to destroy.

Astronomers estimate that the Horsehead has about 5 million years left to exist before it too disintegrates, the article says.

It is noted that thanks to the instruments of the MIRI telescope and NIRCam, an international team of astronomers for the first time discovered small-scale structures of the illuminated edge of the Equine Chair:

• When ultraviolet light vaporizes a dust cloud, dust particles are swept out of the cloud along with the heated gas. Webb discovered a network of subtle features accompanying this movement;
• the observations also allowed astronomers to study how dust blocks and emits light and better understand the nebula’s multidimensional shape;
• In the future, astronomers intend to study the obtained spectroscopic data in order to gain insight into the evolution of the physical and chemical properties of the observed material in the nebula.

Source: EurekAlert

Source: Racurs

David

I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.