The James Webb Telescope takes pictures from inside the giant star factory

A glowing cloud of dust and gas spanning at least 24 light-years away and home to hundreds of newborn stars.

At a distance of only 1,350 light-years from Earth, the Orion Nebula is the closest large nebula we know of. Therefore, the region is also one of the most important “laboratories” when we need to understand how new stars form.

But even though we’ve known about the nebula’s existence since its discovery in 1610, it still hides countless secrets.

And now the James Webb Telescope, the world’s most powerful space telescope, has penetrated the heart of the star factory, snapping an image that astronomers describe as the sharpest and most detailed yet.

Scientists are amazed

The image consists of various filters and was captured with the infrared cameras of the James Webb Telescope, which can penetrate the dense cloud of dust and gas where stars are born.

It is a clear improvement over previous images, for example, from the Hubble telescope, which uses visible light and therefore cannot capture structures and objects that lie around and behind the Orion Nebula.

“We were captured by these exciting photos. We started the project in 2017, which means we have been waiting for over five years to get this data, Els Peters saysan astrophysicist at Western University in London and one of the researchers behind the new image.

We will learn more about our solar system

The image shows a small part of the interior of the Orion Nebula, where we see thick, brown jets of gas and dust extending from the upper left corner down to the right.

In the center of the beam is the image’s brightest star, θ2 Orionis A. Although the star is crystal clear in the new image, it can only be seen with the naked eye from Earth in regions completely free of light pollution.

The red glow around the star is caused by tiny dust grains that reflect the star’s light.

At the same time, the image also shows stars so small that they are still wrapped in the cloud of gas and dust where they formed. The researchers hope to learn more about the different life stages of stars by further analyzing the image.

Our solar system is believed to have been born in an environment similar to the Orion Nebula. So the researchers also hope that new images from the James Webb Telescope can help us learn more about exactly how the Sun and the planets around it formed.