Skip to main content

Webb telescope captures Ring Nebula in gorgeous detail

The James Webb Space Telescope has just served up a couple more sublime images, this time showing the Ring Nebula in astonishing detail.

First spotted in the 18th Century and located around 2,500 light-years from Earth, the Ring Nebula’s colorful main ring is made up of gas thrown off by a dying star at the center of the nebula.

Recommended Videos

This star will eventually become a white dwarf — a very small, dense, and hot core that marks the final evolutionary stage for a star, and one that our own sun will eventually follow, the European Space Agency (ESA) explains on its website.

Webb captured the images using two different cameras. The first one (below) was taken by its near-infrared camera (NIRCam) and shows the intricate details of the filament structure of the inner ring.

The Ring Nebula captured by Webb’s near-infrared camera (NIRCam).
The Ring Nebula captured by Webb’s near-infrared camera (NIRCam). ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, M. Barlow (University College London), N. Cox (ACRI-ST), R. Wesson (Cardiff University)

The second image (below) used Webb’s mid-infrared instrument (MIRI) to reveal particular details in the concentric features in the outer parts of the nebulae’s ring.

The Ring Nebula captured by Webb's mid-infrared instrument (MIRI).
The Ring Nebula captured by Webb’s mid-infrared instrument (MIRI). ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, M. Barlow (University College London), N. Cox (ACRI-ST), R. Wesson (Cardiff University)

The Ring Nebula, which ESA describes as being shaped like a “distorted donut,” contains around 20,000 dense globules that are rich in molecular hydrogen. In contrast, the inner region is an area of very hot gas.

“The main shell contains a thin ring of enhanced emission from carbon-based molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,” ESA said. “Roughly 10 concentric arcs are located just beyond the outer edge of the main ring. The arcs are thought to originate from the interaction of the central star with a low-mass companion orbiting at a distance comparable to that between the Earth and the dwarf planet Pluto. In this way, nebulae like the Ring Nebula reveal a kind of astronomical archaeology, as astronomers study the nebula to learn about the star that created it.”

ESA notes that while the middle of the donut may appear to be empty, in reality, it’s full of lower-density material that stretches both towards and away from us, “creating a shape similar to a rugby ball slotted into the donut’s central gap.”

The Webb telescope is located about a million miles from Earth and recently celebrated its first year of operations.

NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency have worked together on the $10 billion endeavor, building and deploying the world’s most powerful space telescope in a quest to make groundbreaking discoveries about the origins of the universe while at the same time searching for faraway planets that could support life.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
NASA’s Webb telescope peers straight at Saturn-like planets 130 light-years away
Saturn captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.

The James Webb Space Telescope is NASA's most precise and technically proficient equipment for observing the wonders of the universe. Astronomers rely on it to unravel the deepest secrets by peaking at distant solar systems and capturing planets like those in ours.

Much recently, the Webb Telescope was able to capture its first direct image of exoplanets nearly 130 light-years away from the Earth. The observatory seized images of four "giant" planets in the solar system of a distant star called HR 8799. This is a fairly young system formed roughly 30 million years ago, a timeline that dwarfs in comparison to our solar system's 4.6 billion years of age.

Read more
James Webb captures a stunning view of the dreamy Flame Nebula
Webb's image of the Flame Nebula

Our universe is host to many beautiful and fascinating objects, and we're lucky enough to be able to view many of them using high tech instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope. A new Webb image shows a new view of the gorgeous Flame Nebula, an emission nebula located in the constellation of Orion.

This nebula is a busy stellar nursery, with many new stars being formed there. But it isn't stars which researchers were interested in when they looked to the nebula -- in this case, they were studying objects called brown dwarfs. Bigger than most planets but smaller than a star, brown dwarfs are too small to sustain fusion in their cores, so they are often referred to as failed stars.

Read more
James Webb to join observations of asteroid that could strike Earth in 2032
Artist's impression of an asteroid. This image is not intended to reflect the characteristics of any specific known asteroid.

If you've been following the story of an asteroid that could hit Earth in 2032, there's bad news and good news. The bad news is that the likelihood of the asteroid striking the Earth has now risen slightly, but the good news is that astronomers are using tools like the James Webb Space Telescope to track it in more detail.

The probability that Asteroid 2024 YR4 will impact Earth on December 22, 2032 has now risen to 2.3%, according to NASA. The asteroid is being observed by ground-bases telescopes that are part of the International Asteroid Warning Network, which will be following the it for as long as it continues to be visible -- which should be through April this year. After that, it will be too faint to observe until 2028.

Read more