The James Webb Space Telescope has captured images of another phenomena occurring in the deep space. The most powerful observatory in the world has captured a star ready to go supernova..
The explosion of a supernova, which occurs at the end of a star’s existence, is one of the most massive blasts in the cosmos. Due to dust obstructing our view, it is challenging to detect supernovas in our Milky Way galaxy.
The observation was among the first made by Webb following its launch in late 2021. Its infrared eyes observed all the gas and dust flung into space by a huge, hot star 15,000 light-years away. A light-year is about 5.8 trillion miles.
Nasa said that massive stars race through their lifecycles and only some of them go through a brief Wolf-Rayet phase before going supernova, making Webb’s detailed observations of this rare phase valuable to astronomers.
The Hubble Space Telescope snapped a shot of the same transitioning star a few decades ago, but it appeared more like a fireball without the delicate details.James Webb has unveiled the star shimmering in purple like a cherry blossom, the cast-off material once comprised the star’s outer layer.
The star WR 124 is 30 times the mass of the Sun and has shed 10 Suns’ worth of material – so far.
Such a transformation occurs only with some stars and normally is the last step before they explode, going supernova, according to scientists.
“We’ve never seen it like that before. It’s really exciting,” said Macarena Garcia Marin, a European Space Agency scientist who is part of the project.
The observation was made possible by Webb’s extremely sensitive Near-Infrared Camera, which balances the brightness of WR 124’s stellar core and the knotty details in the fainter surrounding gas. Meanwhile, the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on the telescope reveals the clumpy structure of the gas and dust nebula of the ejected material now surrounding the star.
Astronomers said that Webb’s detailed image of WR 124 preserves forever a brief, turbulent time of transformation, and promises future discoveries that will reveal the long-shrouded mysteries of cosmic dust.
Stars like WR 124 also serve as an analog to help astronomers understand a crucial period in the early history of the universe. Similar dying stars first seeded the young universe with heavy elements forged in their cores – elements that are now common in the current era, including on Earth.