The James Webb Telescope captures the Tarantula Nebula in stunning detail

TThe Tarantula Nebula has been photographed by many observatories in the past, but New photos have been taken by James Webb Telescope It gives us a clearer and more accurate view of the star forming region. Also known as 30 Doradus, the Tarantula Nebula is the largest and brightest intergalactic star-forming region close to our galaxy, making it a favorite subject for scientists who study star formation.

Astronomers used three of Webb’s infrared instruments to image the Tarantula Nebula. Viewed with a near-infrared webcam (NIRCam), you’ll see the silky filaments that earned the nebula its name around a cluster of massive young stars shimmering blue in the center of the image above. According to NASA, tens of thousands of these young stars have never been seen before as they have been hidden by cosmic dust. Winds and stellar radiation from these young stars led to the cavity in the nebula’s center, which is bound to continue to shift and change its shape. The filaments that surround them hide more protostars, after all, and will come out to join the other stars in the center as they blow gas and dust, obscuring them from our view.

In fact, Webb’s near-infrared spectrometer observed such a star emerging from behind its dust veil. NASA says the star’s activity would not have been detected without high-resolution Webb spectra at infrared wavelengths. The astronomers also used the Web’s Medium Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to view the nebula at wavelengths longer than the infrared and captured an image completely different from that taken by NIRCam. This time, the young stars in the center of the nebula fade into the background, while the surrounding gas and cool dust glow and shine, as you can see below.

As NASA explains, the Tarantula Nebula is of particular interest to scientists who study star formation, because it has a chemical composition similar to the regions of star formation during the “cosmic noon.” This is the time period when the universe was only two billion years old and when star formation was at its peak. In our galaxy, there are no regions that are producing new stars at a similar furious pace. Also, the star-forming regions of the Milky Way have a different composition. By focusing the Webb Telescope on the Tarantula Nebula, scientists now have images to compare with deep observations of galaxies much distant from the actual cosmic noon, which could help them better understand the early years of the universe.