NASA's James Webb Telescope Captures Wolf-Rayet Star About To Go Supernova
NDTV
The star WR 124 is 30 times the mass of the Sun and has shed 10 Suns' worth of material - so far.
Described as the world's most powerful telescope, NASA's James Web telescope has captured never before seen images of a Wolf-Rayet star in deep space. The Webb telescope captured it in its rare and most fleeting phase of a star on the cusp of death. The pictures were released on Tuesday. The star lies about 15,000 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Sagittarius. A supernova is touted to be one of the biggest explosions in the universe, it happens at the end of a star's life.
In the description of the image, NASA officials wrote, "Massive stars race through their life cycles and only some of them go through a brief Wolf-Rayet phase before going supernova, making Webb's detailed observations of this rare phase valuable to astronomers."
The agency further added, "Wolf-Rayet stars are in the process of casting off their outer layers, resulting in their characteristic halos of gas and dust."
The star WR 124 is 30 times the mass of the Sun and has shed 10 Suns' worth of material - so far. As the ejected gas moves away from the star and cools cosmic dust forms and glows in the infrared light detectable by Webb, according to NASA's press release.
