The James Webb Telescope captures the stellar nursery of Orion

This time, its giant mirror, with a diameter of 6.5 meters, turned towards the Orion Nebula: the James Webb Space Telescope of the US, European and Canadian agencies continues to amaze astronomers and the public with images it sends from its observation post. More than 1.5 million km from Earth.

On September 12, PDRs4All was co-directed by French Olivier Bernier (from the Institute for Research in Astrophysics and Planetary Science in Toulouse), Emily Habart (from the Institute of Astrophysics in Paris-Saclay) and Belgian Els Peters (from the Research Institute for Astrophysics and Planetary Sciences) University of Western Ontario, Canada ) has released never-before-seen details of Orion, our closest stellar nursery in our galaxy, about 1,350 light-years from Earth.

In this region, stars are born within the many filaments that make up the image and that move according to the stellar winds. The brown structure that obscures the image and evokes the soaring “headed” eagle made of a bright star, is the interface of a substance composed of gas and dust. This region is on the boundary between a bluish side, where ultraviolet radiation from the star cluster in the center of the nebula ionizes hydrogen and pushes matter outward, and a region of dust, which is radioactive hydrocarbon molecules (rather green in the image).

“Globes” and white spots

The star that forms the head of the eagle, circled in red, seems to create its own nebula around it, pushing matter into the ocean. “This glow, possibly due to the spread of light on the dust, evokes sunset light”As Olivier Bernet says.

The team of astronomers also immediately noticed by zooming in on a myriad “pellets”small white specks in the nebula, shaped like a jellyfish, a Venetian mask, a head, etc., which are protoplanetary disks, or “propyloids”, that is, the accumulation of matter around a small star, the seat of the appearance of future planets. Dimensions are only ten astronomical units, the size of our solar system. James Webb has never seen it before”Olivier Bernier, a specialist in these regions, testifies to the similarities of those our solar system was in when it was born.

“We are satisfied. The detail of the image gives an incomparable three-dimensional view.Emily Habart appreciates. The differences between the Hubble (which observe the visible) or the Spitzer (infrared) space telescopes are indeed striking. James Webb “sees” through the dust and identifies stars that have so far been hidden from Hubble. It also sees 10 times sharper than Spitzer, making it possible to study small objects in detail such as protoplanetary disks or filaments of matter.

Article waterfalls

A second “extra” image has also been presented showing an area a few light-years north of the previous image. The same dynamic phenomena are observed in these types of cascading materials: cold hydrocarbon (in green), heated hydrogen gas (in blue), and possibly hot dust in red. The stars light up the scene in one way or another depending on their color.

These images, in false color, were produced by the NIRCam instrument, James Webb’s infrared camera, by graphic designer Salome Voinmayor, who combined fourteen telescope snapshots taken in several infrared filters, thus invisible to the eye. The colors correspond to the radiation of different compounds, but it is too early to accurately associate the color with specific chemical elements such as hydrogen, molecular hydrogen, hydrocarbons, dust…

For this, astronomers wait to receive and study other data from the same region, the exact composition, roughly for each pixel in the image, of the light emitted at each wavelength (or color). Only this information will make it possible to accurately determine the sources of light, their composition, temperature and evolution … This will be the key to understanding the mysterious interaction of star radiation with surrounding matter, but also the formation of new generations of stars, stars, or even the carbon cycle (with molecules that heats up, disintegrates, cools, etc.). In line of sight, writing complete scenarios for the emergence of planetary systems like ours.