Amazing James Webb Space Telescope's View Of Carina Nebula

Space.com

See amazing imagery of the Carina Nebula as captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center astrophysicist Amber Straughn explains.  Credit: NASA

Transcript

00:00 Okay, Amber, so here it is. Can you walk us through the final image reveal?

00:05 Absolutely, here we go.

00:08 The last image is... Wow, look at that.

00:14 So, Amber, can you tell us a bit about what we're seeing here?

00:17 Of course. This stunning vista of the cosmic cliffs of the Carina Nebula

00:22 reveals new details about this vast stellar nursery.

00:26 Today, for the first time, we're seeing brand new stars

00:30 that were previously completely hidden from our view.

00:33 Is there something you want to point out here?

00:34 Absolutely. So, honestly, it took me a while to even figure out what to call out in this image.

00:41 There's just so much going on here. It's so beautiful.

00:44 One thing that really, really stands out to me

00:46 is you sort of get this sense of depth and texture from this new data.

00:51 There's just, there's a lot going on. To call out a few specifics,

00:55 first of all, in general, the Carina Nebula is a nearby star-forming region

00:59 within our own Milky Way galaxy, about 7,600 light-years away.

01:03 And in this view, we see some great examples,

01:07 first of all, of hundreds of new stars that we've never seen before.

01:11 We see examples of bubbles and cavities and jets

01:15 that are being blown out by these newborn stars.

01:18 We even see some galaxies sort of lurking in the background up here.

01:23 We see examples of structures that, honestly, we don't even know what they are.

01:27 Like, what's going on here? There's just, there's, the data is just so rich.

01:31 And there's something really special about the infrared.

01:34 Infrared can actually see deeper into these star-forming regions.

01:37 Absolutely. That's one of the great things about infrared is it really does reveal

01:41 what's going on here in a really cosmic sense.

01:44 And in general, what's happening in sort of this overall landscape

01:48 is we have these gigantic, hot, young stars up here to the top of this rim.

01:54 And the radiation and stellar winds from those stars is sort of pushing down

01:59 and running into all of this. This is gas and dust.

02:03 And of course, we know that gas and dust is great raw material

02:07 for newborn stars and baby planets.

02:10 But there's a flip side to this story and also a little bit of a mystery

02:14 because these same processes can serve to sort of erode away this material

02:19 and stop star formation.

02:21 So we have this sort of delicate balance going on of new stars being formed,

02:26 but at the same time, the star formation is being halted.

02:29 And for me, when I see an image like this, I can't help but think about scale.

02:34 You know, every dot of light we see here is an individual star,

02:38 not unlike our sun.

02:40 And many of these likely also have planets.

02:44 And it just reminds me that, you know, our sun and our planets

02:47 and ultimately us were formed out of the same kind of stuff that we see here.

02:52 We humans really are connected to the universe.

02:56 We're made of the same stuff in this beautiful landscape.

03:00 And actually, the Carina Nebula was one of my favorite images from Hubble.

03:03 So Hubble looked at this as well, right?

03:04 Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

03:06 The Hubble image of this is also spectacular.

03:09 We saw it in a different kind of light when Hubble took an image of this,

03:13 of this particular nebula.

03:15 And then you can see amazing things with Hubble.

03:18 But when we zoom in to this new image, we're able to see so much more detail.

03:23 And of course, all of us, you know, I grew up on Hubble and all of us love Hubble.

03:29 And I'm just I'm so excited to see what these two amazing observatories

03:33 are able to do really in tandem with each other.

03:36 Thank you so much.

03:36 And again, congratulations.

03:38 It's been a pleasure to be working on this with you.

03:40 I'm just amazed by what's been going on.

03:42 - Thank you.

03:43 (laughs)

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