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#Wolf-Rayet star
quiltofstars · 2 months
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A scene in Cepheus, from the Tulip Nebula (Sh2-101, bottom left) to WR 134 (top right) // urban.astronomer
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chibinotan · 1 year
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Crisp Death
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dduane · 1 year
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I knew we’d get a decent look at one eventually.  :)
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blueiskewl · 1 year
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Webb Telescope
The rare sight of a Wolf-Rayet star – among the most luminous, most massive, and most briefly detectable stars known – was one of the first observations made by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in June 2022. Webb shows the star, WR 124, in unprecedented detail with its powerful infrared instruments. The star is 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagitta.
Massive stars race through their lifecycles, and only some of them go through a brief Wolf-Rayet phase before going supernova, making Webb’s detailed observations of this rare phase valuable to astronomers. Wolf-Rayet stars are in the process of casting off their outer layers, resulting in their characteristic halos of gas and dust. The star WR 124 is 30 times the mass of the Sun and has shed 10 Suns’ worth of material – so far. As the ejected gas moves away from the star and cools, cosmic dust forms and glows in the infrared light detectable by Webb.
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sitting-on-me-bum · 2 years
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This is one of the photographer's favourite images and it remarkably depicts how interstellar winds and forces have created this perfect cosmic bubble in outer space.
The star responsible for creating the bubble is the bright star near the centre of the nebula and is categorised as a Wolf-Rayet star.
Photographer: YOVIN YAHATHUGODA
Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2021
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netmassimo · 1 year
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An article published in the journal "Nature Astronomy" reports the observation of 17 dust rings around WR 140, a so-called Wolf-Rayet star that has a very young and massive companion. A team of researchers used the James Webb Space Telescope's MIRI instrument to study the area around this pair of stars, obtaining results far superior to those of other instruments, which had only identified two rings. According to the researchers, the rings are generated when the two stars get closer and their stellar winds interact violently causing the gas to compress, as it also contains elements heavier than hydrogen and allows it to form dust.
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spacewonder19 · 7 months
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Big Eye in Cygnus, Wolf-Rayet 134 © xlong
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aaronstjames · 2 years
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aspaceinthecosmos · 1 year
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james webb has snapped an image of a rare wolf-rayet star, a star phase that occurs in only some stars before they go supernova!! it’s super cool that we were able to see this, especially since you can see the star “shedding” its outer layers, resulting in the nebula you can see around it :D
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cosmosseyyah · 1 year
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Wolf-Rayet Stars
Wolf-Rayet yıldızları (ayrıca WR yıldızları), evrim geçirmiş olağanüstü büyüklükte (20 güneş kütlesinden fazla) yıldızlardır ve kütlelerini 2000 km/s hızına ulaşabilen çok yeğin yıldız rüzgârı nedeniyle kaybetmektedirler.
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quiltofstars · 11 months
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Thor’s Helmet, NGC 2359 // BlancaLiu
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chibinotan · 1 year
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Supernova in Hiding
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mfsb · 1 year
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Dust Shells around WR 140 from Webb
What are those strange rings? Rich in dust, the rings are likely 3D shells -- but how they were created remains a topic of research. Where they were created is well known: in a binary star system that lies about 6,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus) -- a system dominated by the Wolf-Rayet star WR 140. Wolf-Rayet stars are massive, bright, and known for their tumultuous winds. They are also known for creating and dispersing heavy elements such as carbon which is a building block of interstellar dust. The other star in the binary is also bright and massive -- but not as active. The two great stars joust in an oblong orbit as they approach each other about every eight years. When at closest approach, the X-ray emission from the system increases, as, apparently, does the dust expelled into space -- creating another shell. The featured infrared image by the new Webb Space Telescope resolves greater details and more dust shells than ever before.
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nmotypdfsfg · 10 months
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nasa · 1 year
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A Dusty Fingerprint in Space
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A new image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope reveals a remarkable cosmic sight: at least 17 concentric dust rings emanating from a pair of stars. Just 5,300 light-years from Earth, the star duo are collectively known as Wolf-Rayet 140. Each ring was created when the two stars came close together and their stellar winds (streams of gas they blow into space) collided so forcefully that some of the gas was compressed into dust. The stars' orbits bring them together about once every eight years, and forms a half-shell of dust that looks like a ring from our perspective. Like a cosmic fingerprint, the 17 rings reveal more than a century of stellar interactions—and the "fingerprint" belonging to Wolf-Rayet 140 may be equally unique. Other Wolf-Rayet stars produce dust, but no other pair are known to produce rings quite like Wolf-Rayet 140.
Learn more about Wolf-Rayet 140.
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netmassimo · 1 year
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An image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope shows the star WR 124 and the surrounding nebula in never-before-seen detail. This is a case where a star is nearing the end of its life, which could culminate in a supernova. For this reason, astronomers have been keeping an eye on WR 124 for years with various instruments and it was among Webb's first observation targets in June 2022. The very powerful stellar wind typical of so-called Wolf-Rayet stars caused the loss of this star's outer layers, which formed the nebula that surrounds it. Its details have now been captured in the breathtaking image thanks to Webb's NIRCam and MIRI instruments to better understand the processes taking place before the possible supernova or another type of death.
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