How wonderful! In recent days, nothing short of spectacular images captured by the Webb Space Telescopewhich immortalize the Red Spider Nebula with details never seen before. And they left everyone speechless.
Space agencies therefore celebrate Halloween with “scary” but actually wonderful images. In 2024 it was the turn of the Dark Wolf Nebulathis year we have the Red Spider Nebula.
This new image of the month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope features an eerie cosmic object called NGC 6537, the Red Spider Nebula. Using its infrared camera (NIRCam), Webb has revealed never-before-seen details in this picturesque planetary nebula with a rich backdrop of thousands of stars.
Planetary nebulae like the Red Spider Nebula they form when ordinary stars like the Sun reach the end of their lives. After transforming into cold red giants, these stars shed their outer layers and project them into space, exposing their incandescent cores.
Ultraviolet light from the central star ionizes the ejected material, causing it to glow. The planetary nebula phase of a star’s life is as fleeting as it is beautifullasting “only” a few tens of thousands of years.
As the European Space Agencyin this extraordinary image the central star of this nebula is visible, just brighter than the “cobwebs” of dusty gas that surround it. The astonishing nature of the star, incredibly hot and bright, was revealed in particular by the NIRCamthanks to its sensitive near-infrared capabilities.
Webb, who is accustoming us to incredible images, this time even managed to detect a veil of hot dust surrounding the central starwhich probably orbits the central star in a disk-like structure. And by the way, although only one star is visible in the heart of this nebula, a companion star may also be hiding.
This, in fact, could explain the shape of the entire celestial structure, including its characteristic narrow waist and large outflows, a sort of “hourglass” also present in other planetary nebulae, such as Butterfly Nebulaalso recently observed by Webb.
Webb’s new image reveals for the first time the entire extent of the outstretched lobes of the nebulawhich form the spider’s “legs”, explain ESA astronomers. These lobes, shown in blue, are traced by the light emitted by hydrogen molecules. Spanning NIRCam’s entire field of view, they result in closed, bubble-like structures, each spanning approximately three light years.
Gas exiting the nebula’s center has inflated these enormous bubbles over thousands of years, but it is also actively escaping from the nebula’s center, as these new Webb observations show.
A elongated purple “S” shapecentered on the heart of the nebula, follows the light of ionized iron atoms: this feature marks the point where a fast-moving jet emerged from near the nebula’s central star and “collided” with material previously ejected from the star, sculpting the rippling structure of the nebula visible today.
What a show!
Source: ESA
