NASA released the latest image from the James Webb Space Telescope on September 6. The star breeding area called “Cosmic Tarantula” contains more than Thousands of young stars are in sight.
Located 161,000 light-years away, the nebula is the largest and brightest star-forming region in the Local Group, the closest galaxies to the Milky Way, and home to the hottest and most massive stars known.
Astronomers used the Webb Space Telescope’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) to observe the “cosmic tarantula” and found that it looked like the home of a burrowing tarantula, covered in spider silk. That’s why the star breeding region of 30 Doradus has been nicknamed the “Cosmic Tarantula.”
Captured by NIRCam, the nebula cavity at the center of the image can be seen hollowed out by the fiery radiation from a multitude of young stars, which glow pale blue in the image. Only the dense surrounding area of the nebula can resist the erosion of these powerful stellar winds, forming pillars that appear to point towards the cluster.
“These pillars contain forming protostars that will eventually emerge from their dust cocoons and in turn form nebulae,” NASA explained.
However, when Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) was used to look at the region, a different picture emerged: hot stars fading away, while cooler gas and dust glowed. While shorter wavelengths of light are absorbed or scattered by dust grains in the nebula and therefore cannot be observed by Webb, longer mid-infrared wavelengths penetrate this dust, ultimately revealing a cosmic environment never seen before.
When Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) looked at the “Cosmic Tarantula” nebula, the hot stars faded away while cooler gas and dust glowed. (NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Webb ERO Production Team)Despite thousands of years of human experience observing stars, many mysteries remain about the process of star formation. Currently, the Webb Space Telescope is orbiting 1 million miles from Earth to reveal more about the universe. ◇