![]() ![]() Wolf-Rayet stars may appear alien to our Sun, but they may have played a role in star and planet formation. There are likely even more rings that are so faint and dispersed that even Webb can't see them in the data. ![]() Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechĪccording to Lau and his co-authors, WR 140's winds also cleared the area of any residual material they might otherwise encounter, which may be why the rings are so beautiful rather than smeared or dispersed. The O-type star is about 30 times the mass of the Sun, while its companion is about 10 times the mass of the Sun. The upper left part of the graph illustrates the Sun's relative size compared to the two other stars in the Wolf-Rayet 140 system. Wolf-Rayet binaries can produce dust continuously with circular orbits. The unique ring pattern forms when the Wolf-Rayet star in WR 140 comes close together and its winds collide, allowing the gas to remain under sufficient pressure. However, Wolf-Rayet stars also eject more complex elements typically found deep within a star's interior, including carbon. The most common element found in stars, hydrogen, can't form dust on its own. Transforming gas into dust is quite similar to kneading bread: it requires specific conditions and ingredients. This process may have drained more than half its original mass. The JPL in Southern California was the primary focus of NASA's work, and a multinational group of European astronomical institutions contributed for ESA.Ī Wolf-Rayet star is an O-type star that was born with at least 25 times more mass than our Sun and is nearing the end of its life, when it will likely collapse and form a black hole. MIRI was developed by a 50-50 partnership between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). This video illustrates how their interaction produces the fingerprint-like pattern seen by NASA's Webb space telescope. The MIRI's spectrometer also revealed the composition of the dust, which was ejected by a Wolf-Rayet star.Įvery time their orbits bring them together, the two stars in Wolf-Rayet 140 form rings, or shells, of dust. The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) is unique in that it is capable of seeing dust rings, or what Lau and his colleagues call shells, because they are thicker and wider than they appear in the image. Before, we were only able to see two dust rings, using ground-based telescopes, but now we see at least 17.” Lau is the lead author of a new paper about the system published on October 12 in the journal Nature Astronomy. “The image also demonstrates how sensitive this telescope is. Ryan Lau, an astronomer at NSF's NOIRLab, describes a century of dust production from this system. When the stellar winds from the two stars collided as they approached one another, compressing the gas and generating dust, each ring erupts, much like the growth rings on a tree trunk. ![]() The duo is located just over 5,000 light years from Earth. In a new image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, at least 17 concentric dust rings are revealed emanating from a pair of stars. Each ring was created when the stars came close together and their stellar winds collided, compressing the gas and forming dust.Ī new Webb photograph depicts at least 17 dust rings created by a unique type of star and its companion locked in a celestial dance. As seen in this image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the two stars in Wolf-Rayet 140 produce shells of dust every eight years that look like rings. ![]()
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