Webb reveals emerging stellar nurseries and individual stars that are completely hidden in visible-light pictures. The “steam” that appears to rise from the celestial “mountains” is actually hot, ionized gas and hot dust streaming away from the nebula due to the relentless radiation. Dramatic pillars tower above the glowing wall of gas, resisting this radiation. The blistering, ultraviolet radiation from the young stars is sculpting the nebula’s wall by slowly eroding it away. The cavernous area has been carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from extremely massive, hot, young stars located in the center of the bubble, above the area shown in this image. In reality, it is the edge of the giant, gaseous cavity within NGC 3324, and the tallest “peaks” in this image are about 7 light-years high. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth.Ĭalled the Cosmic Cliffs, Webb’s seemingly three-dimensional picture looks like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening. This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Objects in the earliest, rapid phases of star formation are difficult to capture, but Webb’s extreme sensitivity, spatial resolution and imaging capability can chronicle these elusive events. Dramatic pillars rise above the glowing wall of gas, resisting this radiation. The blistering, ultraviolet radiation from these stars is sculpting the nebula’s wall by slowly eroding it away. A cavernous area has been carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from extremely massive, hot, young stars located above the area shown in this image. So-called mountains - some towering about 7 light-years high - are speckled with glittering, young stars imaged in infrared light. This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” is actually the edge of a nearby stellar nursery called NGC 3324 at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula.
The seemingly three-dimensional “Cosmic Cliffs” showcases Webb’s capabilities to peer through obscuring dust and shed new light on how stars form.
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