New James Webb telescope images reveal the chaotic beauty of Orion's sword

By Brandon Specktor published about 17 hours ago

One of the brightest, closest nebulas to Earth just got its clearest close-up ever.



The James Webb Space Telescope zooms in on the Orion Nebula, revealing a chaotic battle between baby stars and the gas cloud surrounding them. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, PDRs4All ERS Team; image processing Salomé Fuenmayor)

How do you know you're looking at Orion's belt? It's just a waist of space.

Dad jokes aside, Orion is one of the best known and most studied constellations in the Milky Way. With its nearest stars located just a few hundred light-years from Earth, the constellation is home to some of the largest and brightest stars in the sky (including the infamous red star Betelgeuse) and a thriving nursery of fiery, newborn stars ripe for studying.

Now, using the powerful new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), researchers have captured the sharpest and most detailed images of Orion in history.

The images, shared Monday (Sept. 12) in a statement, do not include the infamous triple-star "belt" of Orion, but rather focus on Orion's gassy "sword" hanging just to the south. At the center of the sword lies the Orion Nebula — one of the biggest and brightest star-forming regions close to Earth.



A detailed image of the Orion Nebula, showing the region's wispy filaments of hydrogen gas, planet-forming dust discs, and globules of gas collapsing into baby stars. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, PDRs4All ERS Team; image processing Salomé Fuenmayor)

More:
https://www.livescience.com/james-webb-space-telescope-orion-nebula-images