Revealing the hidden star in the Butterfly Nebula ????✨

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UFONews
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The James Webb Space Telescope has revealed new details in the heart of the Butterfly Nebula.

The Butterfly Nebula is a bipolar nebula, meaning that it has two lobes that spread in opposite directions, forming the ‘wings’ of the butterfly. A dark band of dusty gas poses as the butterfly’s ‘body’.

This band is actually a doughnut-shaped torus that we see from the side, hiding the nebula’s central star – the ancient core of a Sun-like star that energises the nebula and causes it to glow.

This new Webb image zooms in on the centre of the Butterfly Nebula and its dusty torus, providing an unprecedented view of its complex structure.

The new Webb data show that the torus is composed of crystalline silicates like quartz as well as irregularly shaped dust grains. The dust grains have sizes on the order of a millionth of a metre – large, as far as cosmic dust is considered – indicating that they have been growing for a long time.

???? European Space Agency (ESA)
???? ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, J. Kastner, K. Noll, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, J. Kastner, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb), N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb) - ESO/IDA/Danish 1.5 m/R. Gendler, A. Hornstrup and J.-E. Ovaldsen, Digitized Sky Survey 2, KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Adam Block

#ESA #Rocket #Space
Category
Deep Space
Tags
ESA, European Space Agency, Space
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