ONE of Nasa’s most prominent telescopes has revealed a mind-blowing discovery about what happens when stars die.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) currently orbits Earth at the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2), a spot that’s close to Earth but actually orbits the sun, according to Space.com.
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JWST launched on Christmas of last year and now has had its very first images distributed back to Nasa.
It captured incredible images of a distant planetary nebula from the ‘Southern Ring,’ which astronomers and experts all across the planet are now studying to see how our sun could evolve in the coming years.
The coinciding data from the photos revealed shocking results, however, as JWST has shown there were two, possibly three, unseen stars that made the curvy shapes of the Southern Ring, per The University of Manchester.
Therefore, the star that came from the planetary nebula was ‘not alone’ when it died and ejected its material into space.
Professor of Astrophysics Albert Zijlstra of The University of Manchester explained that it was incredibly unexpected to discover this.
“JWST has revealed details of the death of stars which we had never expected,” he said.
“The ring of dust with the mass of the Earth was a complete surprise. This star did not die alone: its companions left their imprint in the nebula.”
The second star was discovered within a ring of gas ejected by the first, with a mass slightly less than Earth’s.
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The third, much smaller star was found orbiting a gap within that same disk.
Not only that but there may have been a possible fourth star based on some jets that came from the entire planetary nebula.
How a star even forms a planetary nebula is still a mystery to scientists.
Humans allegedly have yet to directly observe the ejection during the nebula’s formation as well, per The University of Manchester.
This specific planetary nebula in the Southern Ring also has a large number of small clouds within it, all the mind-blowing size of an entire solar system.
There are also only about 3,000 known planetary nebulas in our galaxy.
The star that originated from this particular planetary nebula was discovered to be about three times the size of our sun, and the picture offered by JWST allowed this calculation to be the most accurate ever recorded thus far.
The JWST has therefore opened a big door for detailed study into more planetary nebulas in the future, giving possible insight as to exactly how they occur.
For related content, The US Sun has coverage of Nasa’s footage revealing the dark side of the Moon.
The US Sun also has the story on Nasa’s new UFO hunting plan.
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