Star system composed of three stars illuminates significantly in fresh observation from James Webb Space Telescope
In an awe-inspiring reveal, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has unveiled the intricate details of the Lobster Nebula, a vast stellar nursery located approximately 5,500 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius.
The nebula, also known as NGC 6357, is a cloud of mainly molecular hydrogen gas, teeming with thousands of stars. At its core lies the Pismis 24 cluster of hot, young, massive stars. The brightest stars in the JWST image, with their distinctive diffraction spikes, are the most massive stars in the Pismis 24 cluster.
The colorful spectacle in the image is a result of the conversion from infrared light, which the human eye cannot see. The gas within the nebula then scatters this starlight, creating a diffuse, wispy, and magical quality in the scene. The nebula is presented in false color, with cyan indicating hot, ionized gas, orange showing micron-sized dust particles, and red representing cooler, denser molecular hydrogen gas.
One of the standout stars in the image is Pismis 24-1, once thought to be the most massive star known, with a mass of 300 times that of our sun. However, recent analysis has revealed that Pismis 24-1 is actually a triple star system, with one star being 66 times more massive than the sun. The two other stars in the spectroscopic binary are thought to be twins with individual masses about 36 times the mass of our sun.
The largest spire of molecular gas in the image is pointing toward Pismis 24-1. Inside the tip of this spike, you could fit the solar system out to the distance of Neptune, which is about 2.8 billion miles (4.5 billion kilometers) from the sun. The gas inside the spire is denser and can resist ultraviolet onslaught from the stars.
The white mist that seems to be evaporating off the jagged mountaintops of gas in the nebula is gas and dust streaming off the spires as it is energized by radiation from the stars. The denser the molecular gas, the deeper red it has been colored, with the densest gas seen in black because it is opaque and emits no light.
The stars in the image are in false color, with color relating to their stellar type and amount of light-absorbing dust. The three stars shown in the false-color image as the hottest and most massive in the Pismis 24 cluster are Pismis 24-1 (a binary system with components of 74 and 66 solar masses each), along with two other massive stars nearby within the cluster. Pismis 24-1 is the brightest and hottest, with a surface temperature over 45,000 °C, belonging to spectral class O, the hottest and most massive stars' category.
All three stars in the Pismis 24 system are massive enough to end their lives in supernova explosions in about a million years. The gas inside the spire is being stirred up and compressed to the point of gravitational collapse, forming more stars. As we continue to explore and understand the Lobster Nebula, we are not only uncovering the mysteries of the universe but also expanding our knowledge of the life cycle of stars.
