James Webb Space Telescope Discovery

NIRCam Orion mosaic

This image shows the full survey of the inner Orion Nebula and Trapezium Cluster made using the NIRCam instrument on the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. This is the long-wavelength colour composite, which focuses on the gas, dust, and molecules in the region with unprecedented sensitivity in the thermal infrared. This young star-forming region is just a million years old and contains thousands of new stars spanning a range of masses from 40 down to less than 0.1 times the mass of the Sun. The most massive and hottest stars in the region, notably the Trapezium in the centre, have sculpted a cavity in the surface of the giant molecular cloud from which they were born, which can be readily seen in this image. The Trapezium stars themselves are less obvious in the long-wavelength mosaic, but their presence is betrayed by the emission from warm dust around them, seen in light brown. The Orion Nebula lies roughly 1300 light years from Earth in the so-called "sword" of the constellation of Orion the Hunter, and the image shows a region that is 4 by 2.75 light years in size. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA Science leads and image processing: M. McCaughrean, S. Pearson Short-wavelength NIRCam Orion mosaic This image shows a short-wavelength NIRCam mosaic of the inner Orion Nebula and Trapezium Cluster. It shows a region 4 light years across, slightly less than the distance between the Sun and our nearest neighbour, Proxima Centauri. The full image on ESASky measures 21,000 x 14,351 pixels and can be viewed here
Long-wavelength NIRCam Orion mosaic This image shows a long-wavelength NIRCam mosaic of the inner Orion Nebula and Trapezium Cluster. The full image on ESA Sky measures 10,446 x 7,109 pixels and can be viewed here
Young star and proto-planetary disk in Orion This cutout from the new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope short-wavelength infrared image of the Orion Nebula shows a young star and its protoplanetary disk being sculpted by the intense ultraviolet radiation and winds from the massive Trapezium stars that lie at the centre of the region. The Orion Nebula lies roughly 1300 light-years from Earth in the so-called 'sword' of the constellation of Orion the Hunter, and the image shows a region that is 4 by 2.75 light-years in size. The object, known by its catalogue name d072-135, was first discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope at visible wavelengths, but the new Webb images reveal much more detail. The dusty disk around the central star is seen as a dark shadow or silhouette against the bright background light of the Orion Nebula and appears as an ellipse because the disk is oriented nearly edge-on. The disk is approximately 200 astronomical units in diameter, so more than three times the size of our Solar System out to Neptune.
Explosion fingers from the BN-KL region in Orion This cutout from the new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope short-wavelength infrared image of the Orion Nebula shows bright 'fingers' of gas racing away from an explosion that occurred roughly 500 to 1000 years ago in the heart of a dense molecular cloud behind the nebula, perhaps as two young massive stars collided. The dense cloud is called Orion Molecular Cloud 1 and lies to the north-west of the visible Trapezium stars in Orion. The fingers are predominantly red, indicating emission from molecular hydrogen gas that has been shocked by the immense energy pouring out from the explosion site. Near the tips of some of the fingers, the emission turns green due to hot iron gas and even white in some cases where the gas is at its hottest. Further down, the fingers seem mostly turbulent, but in some places, the flow appears laminar. The Orion Nebula lies roughly 1300 light-years from Earth in the so-called 'sword' of the constellation of Orion the Hunter, and the image shows a region that is 4 by 2.75 light=years in size.
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