Space telescope captures rare image of dying star

Scientists: ‘We’ve never seen anything like it before’

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a rare image of a dying star. Scientists have published an image of a star in the constellation Sagittarius on the verge of becoming a supernova. The infrared lens of the telescope observed the gas and dust thrown into space by a huge star located at a distance of 15 thousand light years.

A rare and fleeting phase of a star at death’s door was captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.

According to The Guardian, this observation was one of the first made by the telescope after its launch in late 2021, but the image was published only this week. The infrared “eyes” of the telescope observed all the gas and dust thrown into space by a huge hot star, located at a distance of 15 thousand light years. A light year is about 5.8 trillion miles.

Shimmering purple like a cherry blossom, the ejected material once made up the star’s outer layer. The Hubble Space Telescope took a picture of the same transitional star decades ago, but it looked more like a fireball without fine details.

According to scientists, such a transformation occurs only with some stars and is usually the last step before they explode, turning into a supernova.

“We have never seen anything like this before. It’s really exciting,” said Macarena project member Garcia Marin of the European Space Agency.

This star in the constellation Sagitta, officially known as WR 124 (Wolff-Rayet 124), is thirty times the size of our Sun and has already shed enough material to form 10 suns, according to NASA.

The new photo was published at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, writes The Guardian.

“What we’re seeing in this beautiful new image at the very center is a star,” said NASA’s Amber Straun. “The light from this star traveled in space for about 15,000 years, it is 15,000 light years away, until it hit the detectors of the telescope. And the material that you see around the central star that looks like dust is dust. And so, at the end of their lives, stars shed their outer material, their outer layers, into the rest of the Universe.”

She added: “I think this is one of the most beautiful concepts in all of astronomy. It’s Carl Sagan’s Stardust concept. The fact that the iron in your blood and the calcium in your bones were literally forged inside a star that exploded billions of years ago.” back. And that’s what we’re seeing in this new image. This dust is spreading through space and will eventually create planets. And that’s how we got here, really.”