See amazing imagery of the Carina Nebula as captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center astrophysicist Amber Straughn explains.
Credit: NASA
Credit: NASA
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TechTranscript
00:00 Okay, Amber, so here it is. Can you walk us through the final image reveal?
00:05 Absolutely, here we go.
00:08 The last image is... Wow, look at that.
00:14 So, Amber, can you tell us a bit about what we're seeing here?
00:17 Of course. This stunning vista of the cosmic cliffs of the Carina Nebula
00:22 reveals new details about this vast stellar nursery.
00:26 Today, for the first time, we're seeing brand new stars
00:30 that were previously completely hidden from our view.
00:33 Is there something you want to point out here?
00:34 Absolutely. So, honestly, it took me a while to even figure out what to call out in this image.
00:41 There's just so much going on here. It's so beautiful.
00:44 One thing that really, really stands out to me
00:46 is you sort of get this sense of depth and texture from this new data.
00:51 There's just, there's a lot going on. To call out a few specifics,
00:55 first of all, in general, the Carina Nebula is a nearby star-forming region
00:59 within our own Milky Way galaxy, about 7,600 light-years away.
01:03 And in this view, we see some great examples,
01:07 first of all, of hundreds of new stars that we've never seen before.
01:11 We see examples of bubbles and cavities and jets
01:15 that are being blown out by these newborn stars.
01:18 We even see some galaxies sort of lurking in the background up here.
01:23 We see examples of structures that, honestly, we don't even know what they are.
01:27 Like, what's going on here? There's just, there's, the data is just so rich.
01:31 And there's something really special about the infrared.
01:34 Infrared can actually see deeper into these star-forming regions.
01:37 Absolutely. That's one of the great things about infrared is it really does reveal
01:41 what's going on here in a really cosmic sense.
01:44 And in general, what's happening in sort of this overall landscape
01:48 is we have these gigantic, hot, young stars up here to the top of this rim.
01:54 And the radiation and stellar winds from those stars is sort of pushing down
01:59 and running into all of this. This is gas and dust.
02:03 And of course, we know that gas and dust is great raw material
02:07 for newborn stars and baby planets.
02:10 But there's a flip side to this story and also a little bit of a mystery
02:14 because these same processes can serve to sort of erode away this material
02:19 and stop star formation.
02:21 So we have this sort of delicate balance going on of new stars being formed,
02:26 but at the same time, the star formation is being halted.
02:29 And for me, when I see an image like this, I can't help but think about scale.
02:34 You know, every dot of light we see here is an individual star,
02:38 not unlike our sun.
02:40 And many of these likely also have planets.
02:44 And it just reminds me that, you know, our sun and our planets
02:47 and ultimately us were formed out of the same kind of stuff that we see here.
02:52 We humans really are connected to the universe.
02:56 We're made of the same stuff in this beautiful landscape.
03:00 And actually, the Carina Nebula was one of my favorite images from Hubble.
03:03 So Hubble looked at this as well, right?
03:04 Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
03:06 The Hubble image of this is also spectacular.
03:09 We saw it in a different kind of light when Hubble took an image of this,
03:13 of this particular nebula.
03:15 And then you can see amazing things with Hubble.
03:18 But when we zoom in to this new image, we're able to see so much more detail.
03:23 And of course, all of us, you know, I grew up on Hubble and all of us love Hubble.
03:29 And I'm just I'm so excited to see what these two amazing observatories
03:33 are able to do really in tandem with each other.
03:36 Thank you so much.
03:36 And again, congratulations.
03:38 It's been a pleasure to be working on this with you.
03:40 I'm just amazed by what's been going on.
03:42 - Thank you.
03:43 (laughs)