NASA releases new images of Tarantula Nebula from Webb Telescope

NASA has released new images from the Webb Telescope.

NASA posted a statement, which included the following:

“Once upon a space-time, a cosmic creation story unfolded: Thousands of never-before-seen young stars spotted in a stellar nursery called 30 Doradus, captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Nicknamed the Tarantula Nebula for the appearance of its dusty filaments in previous telescope images, the nebula has long been a favorite for astronomers studying star formation. In addition to young stars, Webb reveals distant background galaxies, as well as the detailed structure and composition of the nebula’s gas and dust.”

NASA further stated that the Tarantula Nebula is the “largest and brightest star-forming region in the Local Group, the galaxies nearest our Milky Way.”

However, you may be wondering just what you’re looking at – the nebula’s cavity centered in the NIRCam image has been hollowed out by blistering radiation from a cluster of massive young stars, which sparkle pale blue in the image. NASA stated only the densest surrounding areas of the nebula avoid erosion by these stars’ powerful stellar winds, which causes them to form pillars appearing to point back toward the cluster. These pillars contain forming protostars, which will eventually emerge from the dust and take their turn shaping the nebula.

NASA stated this image could not have been revealed without Webb’s high-resolution spectra at infrared wavelengths.

To read more about the latest images and the tarantula nebula, you can view NASA’s release here.