The structure of a ringed planetary nebula revealed in the infrared
Click for original image.
Cool image time! Using the mid-infrared camera on the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have been able to image in false colors the ringed structure surrounding a dying star about 1,500 light years away.
The nebula’s two rings are unevenly illuminated in Webb’s observations, appearing more diffuse at bottom left and top right. They also look fuzzy, or textured. “We think the rings are primarily made up of very small dust grains,” Ressler said. “When those grains are hit by ultraviolet light from the white dwarf star, they heat up ever so slightly, which we think makes them just warm enough to be detected by Webb in mid-infrared light.”
In addition to dust, the telescope also revealed oxygen in its clumpy pink center, particularly at the edges of the bubbles or holes.
NGC 1514 is also notable for what is absent. Carbon and more complex versions of it, smoke-like material known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, are common in planetary nebulae (expanding shells of glowing gas expelled by stars late in their lives). Neither were detected in NGC 1514. More complex molecules might not have had time to form due to the orbit of the two central stars, which mixed up the ejected material.
Though this false-color image of a planetary nebular is hardly ground-breaking (Hubble has been producing such pictures for decades), Webb’s better infrared data, in higher resolution, will help astronomers untangle the nebula’s complex geography. It remains however a question whether the improved capabilities of Webb were worth its $10 billion-plus cost. For that money NASA could have built and launched many different astronomical missions in the past two decades, many of which would have been able to match this data for far less.
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Click for original image.
Cool image time! Using the mid-infrared camera on the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have been able to image in false colors the ringed structure surrounding a dying star about 1,500 light years away.
The nebula’s two rings are unevenly illuminated in Webb’s observations, appearing more diffuse at bottom left and top right. They also look fuzzy, or textured. “We think the rings are primarily made up of very small dust grains,” Ressler said. “When those grains are hit by ultraviolet light from the white dwarf star, they heat up ever so slightly, which we think makes them just warm enough to be detected by Webb in mid-infrared light.”
In addition to dust, the telescope also revealed oxygen in its clumpy pink center, particularly at the edges of the bubbles or holes.
NGC 1514 is also notable for what is absent. Carbon and more complex versions of it, smoke-like material known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, are common in planetary nebulae (expanding shells of glowing gas expelled by stars late in their lives). Neither were detected in NGC 1514. More complex molecules might not have had time to form due to the orbit of the two central stars, which mixed up the ejected material.
Though this false-color image of a planetary nebular is hardly ground-breaking (Hubble has been producing such pictures for decades), Webb’s better infrared data, in higher resolution, will help astronomers untangle the nebula’s complex geography. It remains however a question whether the improved capabilities of Webb were worth its $10 billion-plus cost. For that money NASA could have built and launched many different astronomical missions in the past two decades, many of which would have been able to match this data for far less.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I think it’s very hard to put a price value on something like JWST, but I think you are on to something in trying to assess value via opportunity cost.
I am very pleased that JWST is operational. I am displeased it cost so much to get there. (It was called “the telescope that ate astronomy” for a reason!)
But we can’t get the money back, so the priority now is to think much harder about how NASA does astrophysics in space going forward. It’s too late to do anything about WFIRST/Nancy Grace Roman (despite what appears to be Russ Vought’s wish), since it’s mostly built and paid for now anyway (and it has had surprisingly little in the way of cost overrun so far….knock on wood). But what comes after Roman? There needs to be a fundamental rethink about just how NASA procures these capabilities in a way that is more cost effective. We just can’t afford to keep doing things like we have. These monsters like the Large Ultraviolet Optical Infrared (LUVOIR) Surveyor that are in the early planning stages need to be placed on a hard hold until we can do this reassessment.
“It remains however a question whether the improved capabilities of Webb were worth its $10 billion-plus cost. For that money NASA could have built and launched many different astronomical missions in the past two decades, many of which would have been able to match this data for far less.”
Please, Robert, read up how a telescope works. Certain information can only be observed in certain wavelengths. So IR is needed in this case. Also, a big telescope can only be replaced by smaller ones, if they can be operated as an Interferometry, otherwise it lacks the resolution, and sensitivity.
This is quite basic stuff. If we can’t do it from earth (IR vs the effects of the atmosphere), and we can’t use interferormetry, we need to got big to get this data. There is no matching with smaller telescopes.
Coincidentally, Eric Berger devotes his Tuesday Telescope installment today to the same image, and the same question: Is the James Webb Space Telescope worth $10 billion?
(You can probably guess his answer, though it is interesting that he thinks the question is worth asking.)
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/04/tuesday-telescope-is-the-james-webb-space-telescope-worth-10-billion/