The James Webb Space Telescope revealed on Tuesday stunning images of the Tarantula Nebula, a region of the universe where stars are born at a frantic pace, and the provision of their images will contribute to enhancing scientific knowledge of star formation.
And the US space agency (NASA) said in a statement that the Tarantula Nebula, which was named after the shape of the clouds of gas and dust in it, is located only 161,000 light-years away, and is the largest and brightest among the star-forming regions in all galaxies close to The galaxy in which Earth is located, and contains the most famous and largest known stars.
Scientists have always focused on this nebula to study the process of star formation, but James Webb’s images reveal new details, including thousands of young stars that were not visible until now to previous telescopes.
A number of James Webb’s scientific instruments were used to capture images of the nebula at different wavelengths.
A group of very bright blue young stars appears in the center of the image captured by the “Nercam” instrument, which monitors the near-infrared field that is not visible to the naked eye.
Another instrument, “Nerspick”, allowed the telescope to observe a star emerging from its dust column and still surrounded by a cloud, a stage in its formation that would not have been possible to monitor without the great capabilities of James Webb. Previously, researchers believed that this star is older and at a more advanced stage.
“Star-forming regions within the Milky Way (which includes Earth) do not produce stars at the same rate as the frenetic Tarantula Nebula, and have different chemical compositions,” NASA explained.
From this point of view, scientists attach great importance to its chemical composition, because it is similar to the regions in which stars were formed when the age of the universe was not more than a few billion years, which is the stage that witnessed the greatest amount of star formation.
The James Webb Telescope, which cost ten billion dollars, was sent into space in December 2021 and actually entered service a few months ago, and is currently stationed about 1.5 million km from the planet.
And the US space agency considered that what the telescope has produced so far is only “the beginning of rewriting the history of star formation.”