James Webb Space Telescope Feed Post

Webb Captures Top of Iconic Horsehead Nebula in Unprecedented Detail (NIRCam)

The Horsehead Nebula is famously known for…looking like a horse’s head. But there is more to this cloud of dust and gas than meets the eye. Webb captured the top of the "horse's mane," giving us the sharpest infrared images of the region to date: go.nasa.gov/4deZDLI The ultraviolet radiation from young massive stars is what influences the chemistry within the nebula - this region is considered one of the best for studying how radiation from stars interacts with interstellar matter. This portion of the Horsehead Nebula is about 0.8 light years across. In the near-infrared, young stars peep through the ethereal blueish clouds, and distant galaxies sprinkle the background. Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Karl Misselt (University of Arizona), Alain Abergel (AIM Paris-Saclay) [Image description: A clumpy dome of blueish-gray clouds rises about a third of the way from the bottom. Above it, streaky, translucent red wisps brush upward to about halfway up the image. The top half of the image is the black background of space with one prominent, bright white star with Webb’s 8-point diffraction spikes. Additional stars and galaxies are scattered throughout the image, although very few are seen through the thick clouds at bottom and all are significantly smaller than the largest star.] Image & Description by NASA