Stunning new images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed the Orion Nebula, a mass of gas and stellar dust that resembles a massive, winged object with a bright star in its center.
The international researchers who released the ground-breaking images plan to study this data in order to better understand the conditions that prevailed when our system came to be.
“The wonderful images of the Orion Nebula have astonished us,” said Els Peters, an astrophysicist at Western University, in a statement. “The new images allow us to better understand how massive stars transform their clouds of gas and dust.”
Large amounts of dust obscure the nebulae, making it impossible for visible-light telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope to see what’s inside.
Among these facilities are a number of dense galactic filaments that promote the birth of a new generation of stars, as well as star systems in the process of formation consisting of a central star surrounded by a circle of dust and gas within which planets are formed.
“We hope to gain an understanding of the full cycle of star birth,” said astrophysicist Edwin Bergen of the University of Michigan.
James Webb, with a cost of ten billion dollars, is currently located about 1.5 million kilometers from the planet.