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Stunning Revelation: Webb Telescope’s Latest Snap Reveals Ring Nebula’s Cosmic Beauty!

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4 min readAug 10, 2023

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The Ring Nebula has been freshly imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope. Never before has any device produced a more detailed photograph of it.

The Ring Nebula — a photo taken by the JWST — [Image Assembly and Processing : Robert Gendler, Additional credits: NASA, ESA, and C. R. O’Dell (Vanderbilt University), Public Domain]

The Webb Telescope has been quite active lately. Just a few days ago, the device detected traces of water in the planetary system PDS 70, and later captured a burst of young star formation. Astronomers overseeing the advanced telescope proudly shared another spectacular photograph of the Ring Nebula.

What is the Ring Nebula?

The Ring Nebula is a visually striking cloud of gas and dust, formed from the outer layers of a star that has reached the end of its nuclear fusion phase in its core. In simple terms, it’s a cosmic remnant of the death of this celestial body, a phenomenon that occurs in the case of small to medium-sized stars.

The outer layers of the nebula are quite ephemeral. Strong stellar winds blow away this “cloud,” revealing only the inner portion of the star, which is relatively small and still very hot but no longer undergoing nuclear reactions. This object is referred to as a white dwarf. The central star of the Ring Nebula is designated as HD 175353.

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