Webb Telescope captures rarely seen prelude to supernova

Date:
March 14, 2023
Source:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Summary:
The rare sight of a Wolf-Rayet star -- among the most luminous,
most massive, and most briefly detectable stars known -- was one of
the first observations made by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope in
June 2022. Webb shows the star, WR 124, in unprecedented detail with
its powerful infrared instruments. The star is 15,000 light-years
away in the constellation Sagittarius.


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FULL STORY ==========================================================================
The rare sight of a Wolf-Rayet star -- among the most luminous, most
massive, and most briefly detectable stars known -- was one of the
first observations made by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope in June
2022. Webb shows the star, WR 124, in unprecedented detail with its
powerful infrared instruments. The star is 15,000 light-years away in
the constellation Sagittarius.


========================================================================== Massive stars race through their lifecycles, 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. 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.

The origin of cosmic dust that can survive a supernova blast and
contribute to the universe's overall "dust budget" is of great interest
to astronomers for multiple reasons. Dust is integral to the workings
of the universe: It shelters forming stars, gathers together to help
form planets, and serves as a platform for molecules to form and clump
together -- including the building blocks of life on Earth. Despite
the many essential roles that dust plays, there is still more dust
in the universe than astronomers' current dust-formation theories can
explain. The universe is operating with a dust budget surplus.

Webb opens up new possibilities for studying details in cosmic dust, which
is best observed in infrared wavelengths of light. Webb's Near-Infrared
Camera (NIRCam) balances the brightness of WR 124's stellar core and
the knotty details in the fainter surrounding gas. The telescope's
Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) reveals the clumpy structure of the gas and
dust nebula of the ejected material now surrounding the star. Before Webb, dust-loving astronomers simply did not have enough detailed information
to explore questions of dust production in environments like WR 124,
and whether the dust grains were large and bountiful enough to survive
the supernova and become a significant contribution to the overall dust
budget. Now those questions can be investigated with real data.

Stars like WR 124 also serve as an analog to help astronomers understand
a crucial period in the early history of the universe. Similar dying stars first seeded the young universe with heavy elements forged in their cores
-- elements that are now common in the current era, including on Earth.

Webb's detailed image of WR 124 preserves forever a brief, turbulent time
of transformation, and promises future discoveries that will reveal the
long- shrouded mysteries of cosmic dust.

* RELATED_TOPICS
o Space_&_Time
# Stars # Nebulae # Cosmology # Astronomy # NASA #
Galaxies # Big_Bang # Astrophysics
* RELATED_TERMS
o Blue_supergiant_star o Spitzer_space_telescope o Supernova o
Alpha_Centauri o Stellar_evolution o Star_cluster o Milky_Way
o Star_Trek

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
NASA/Goddard_Space_Flight_Center. Note: Content may be edited for style
and length.


========================================================================== Related Multimedia:
* The_luminous,_hot_star_Wolf-Rayet_124_(WR_124) ==========================================================================


Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230314205347.htm

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