Webb reveals stunning new lavalike details inside Helix Nebula
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope uncovers intricate gas and dust structures in the Helix Nebula, offering new insight into how sun-like stars end their lives.
This image of the Helix Nebula from the ground-based Visible and Infrared Telescope for Astronomy (left) shows the full view of the planetary nebula, with a box highlighting Webb’s field of view (right). (Image credit: ESO, VISTA, NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. Emerson (ESO); Acknowledgment: CASU)
In the vast expanse of the cosmos, the end of a star’s life can be as beautiful as it is dramatic, and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope's new image of the Helix Nebula is a breathtaking example.
Located about 650 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius, the Helix Nebula is one of the closest and most iconic planetary nebulae visible from Earth. Planetary nebulae are the final evolutionary stage of sunlike stars: As a star exhausts its nuclear fuel, it sheds its outer layers into space, leaving behind a dense core called a white dwarf. The expelled gas glows in colorful, complex patterns as it interacts with stellar winds and radiation.
What makes this Webb image extraordinary is not just the nebula’s mesmerizing beauty but the unprecedented clarity with which we can now see the structures within it. Webb’s near-infrared camera (NIRCam) instrument captures subtle temperature variations and the intricate patterns of gas and dust streaming away from the aging star. The image reveals cometlike knots and filaments, shaped by fierce stellar winds — features that were hinted at in earlier observations but are now rendered in stark, three-dimensional detail. The result looks like a golden lava lamp.
This new image of a portion of the Helix Nebula from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope highlights comet-like knots, fierce stellar winds, and layers of gas shed off by a dying star interacting with its surrounding environment. (Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI))
According to NASA, this image is a window into our own future. In about 5 billion years, our sun will enter this phase, unveiling a similar nebula as it fades into a white dwarf. By studying the Helix Nebula in such rich resolution, scientists gain clues into the complex physics that govern the death of stars and the recycling of stellar material back into the galaxy.
The Webb image also highlights transitions between hotter and cooler regions of gas, painting a dynamic picture of how energy and matter evolve in the final throes of a star’s life. Such observations are key to refining models of stellar evolution and deepening our understanding of how elements forged in stars are dispersed into space, ultimately contributing to the formation of new stars and planets.
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