New ‘breathtaking’ Webb images to reveal the secrets of star birth
Updated 10:26 AM EDT, Mon September 12, 2022
The Orion nebula as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, left, and the James Webb Space Telescope, right.
NASA/ESA/CSA/PDRS4all
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“Breathtaking” images of a stellar nursery in the Orion Nebula taken by the James Webb Space Telescope are revealing intricate details about how stars and planetary systems form.
The images, released Monday, shed light on an environment similar to our own solar system
when it formed more than 4.5 billion years ago. Observing the Orion Nebula will help space scientists better understand what happened during the
first million years of the Milky Way’s planetary evolution, said Western University astrophysicist Els Peeters in a news release.
“We are blown away by the breathtaking images of the Orion Nebula. We started this project in 2017, so we have been waiting more than five years to get these data,” Peeters said.