Southern Ring Nebula in near infrared light from NASAs Webb Telescope.

by Nasa

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Southern Ring Nebula in near infrared light from NASAs Webb Telescope.

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Nasa

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Southern Ring Nebula in near-infrared light from NASA's Webb Telescope. This scene was created by a white dwarf star - the remains of a star like our Sun after it shed its outer layers and stopped burning fuel though nuclear fusion. Those outer layers now form the ejected shells all along this view. In the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), the white dwarf appears to the lower left of the bright, central star, partially hidden by a diffraction spike. The brighter star hasn't yet shed its layers. It closely orbits the dimmer white dwarf, helping to distribute what it's ejected. Over thousands of years and before it became a white dwarf, the star periodically ejected mass - the visible shells of material. As if on repeat, it contracted, heated up - and then, unable to push out more material, pulsated. Stellar material was sent in all directions - like a rotating sprinkler - and provided the ingredients for this asymmetrical landscape. Today, the white dwarf is heating up the gas in the inner regions - which appear blue at left and red at right. Both stars are lighting up the outer regions, shown in orange and blue, respectively.

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July 13th, 2022

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