The Carina Nebula is the most prolific star formation site in the Milky Way.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA — The Carina Nebula is one of the most prolific star-forming regions in the Milky Way galaxy. In images produced by the new James Webb telescope, Webb’s instruments discover hundreds of new stars we’ve never seen before.
According to astronomers NASA Amber Straughn, deputy project scientist for Webb, said the light of new stars can often be obscured by thick dust clouds from nebulae such as Carina. However, if you observe the universe at infrared wavelengths, you can more easily see through the dust cloud to the stars developing within it.
Because of this ability, the Webb is the ideal tool for examining the life cycle of stars, from star nurseries such as Nebula Carina to white dwarfs and clouds of debris as extensive as the Southern Ring Nebula.
The strong stellar winds of these young stars, which are bursts of radiation and ionized particles, cut the voids and bubbles into gas and dust, giving the nebula in photographs its intricate and frothy appearance.
Webb’s high-resolution infrared instrument captures the structure better. That’s why Webb’s photos of the nebula are so different from Hubble’s cloudier thin vision.
The stellar winds help compress and heat the material, leading to increased star formation, as they carve abstract cosmic art in the nebula.
“But there’s another side to this story and also a bit of mystery, because these same processes can serve to erode this material and stop star formation,” Straughn said. Inverse.
“So we have a delicate balance like this that happens with new stars that are forming, but at the same time, star formation stops,” he explained.
Carefully scheduled observations over the coming months will gather data to answer key scientific questions and will test the limits of the Webb telescope. These observations will test Webb’s sensitivity, separability, and tracking ability.
