James Webb Spots a Tarantula

Eekkk !


The Webb team released this new image yesterday of the Tarantula Nebula , I don't like spiders but think this one is lovely.

In this mosaic image stretching 340 light-years across, Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) displays the Tarantula Nebula star-forming region in a new light, including tens of thousands of never-before-seen young stars that were previously shrouded in cosmic dust. The most active region appears to sparkle with massive young stars, appearing pale blue. Scattered among them are still-embedded stars, appearing red, yet to emerge from the dusty cocoon of the nebula. NIRCam is able to detect these dust-enshrouded stars thanks to its unprecedented resolution at near-infrared wavelengths.

To the upper left of the cluster of young stars, and the top of the nebula’s cavity, an older star prominently displays NIRCam’s distinctive eight diffraction spikes, an artifact of the telescope’s structure. Following the top central spike of this star upward, it almost points to a distinctive bubble in the cloud. Young stars still surrounded by dusty material are blowing this bubble, beginning to carve out their own cavity. Astronomers used two of Webb’s spectrographs to take a closer look at this region and determine the chemical makeup of the star and its surrounding gas. This spectral information will tell astronomers about the age of the nebula and how many generations of star birth it has seen.
webbtelescope.org...

The Tarantula Nebula is about 159,800 light years from Earth but Webb makes it look like it's next door , for comparison here's Hubble's view in 2011.

a reply to: gortex

Despite all of it's haters, the Webb has been worth the wait.

a reply to: gortex

May I be the first to welcome our new Arachnid overlords?

Beautiful image but I just dont see a spider in it for some reason?

a reply to: gortex


I love these images where your imagination runs wild, there could be 1/100s or zero civilisations out there, I will never know for certain, hopefully future generations will
BUT

If there are spiders in space then I only have one option

Thanks for the post!

Love it..

Now please take a picture Pluto

a reply to: gortex

They're really overdoing it with the starring effect imo, somehow it takes away.

Hopefully they'll lighten up a bit on the over processing.

a reply to: iamthevirus

Webb’s Diffraction Spikes are caused by a combination of its main mirror segments and the struts holding the secondary mirror.
stsci-opo.org...

As it's producing image quality like in the one above the Diffraction Spikes aren't really an issue for me.