SCIENCE:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Orsola
De Marco
(Macquarie University)
IMAGE PROCESSING:
Joseph
DePasquale
(STScI)
The Webb Space Telescope offers dramatically different views of the same scene! Each image combines near- and mid-infrared light from three filters.
At left, Webb’s image of the Southern Ring Nebula highlights the very hot gas that surrounds the central stars. This hot gas is banded by a sharp ring of cooler gas, which appears in both images.
At right, 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. “One of the things that drew my attention was the strong difference between the images of the hot ionized gas and the cold molecular gas,” explained Isabel Aleman of Federal University of Itajubá (UNIFEI), Brazil. “The hot gas is very smooth, but the cold gas shows these mini clumps, spikes, and arcs. Webb’s images are very, very rich in detail.”
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, she and the research team were able to create far more accurate models to demonstrate when gas was ejected by the central star (which appears red in the image at left).
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. It’s merely “photobombing” this party.