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James Webb: Nasa space telescope captures rare image of dying star
Image source, NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team
The James Webb Space Telescope has already been changing our understanding of the universe with some incredible pictures.
Now its latest offering has got scientists really excited!
The world's largest and most powerful telescope has now snapped a rare image of a dying star, getting ready to go supernova.
The star, called WR 124, is about 30 times the size of the Sun and is located 15,000 light years away.
The huge star has been pictured emitting gas, which as it cools forms cosmic dust which glows in infrared light!
What's happened?
Image source, Getty Images
The star, called Wolf-Rayet 124 (or WR 124 for short) sits in the constellation Sagittarius.
Wolf-Rayet stars are huge, hot stars - with masses typically greater than 25 times that of the Sun - which burn brightly.
Because stars this massive have difficulty holding themselves together, they don't last very long and they are very rare.
The stars burn up their energy quickly and cast off their outer layers into space - resulting in their characteristic halos of gas and dust - before eventually tearing themselves apart.
In fact, scientists have calculated that WR 124 has already lost material equivalent to around 10 times the mass of the Sun!
Image source, 成人快手 Bitesize
Nasa scientist Amber Straughn explained: "What we're seeing in this beautiful new image at the very centre is a star."
"The light from that star has been travelling through space for about 15,000 years - it's 15,000 light years away - until it hit the detectors on the telescope.
"The material that you're seeing around the central star that looks like dust, is dust," she added.
Cosmic dust is really important for the universe - it helps shelter forming stars, it gathers together to help form planets, and it also helps molecules clump together which can form the building blocks of life.
Dr Straughn added: "I think this is one of the most beautiful concepts in all of astronomy.
"That dust is spreading out into the cosmos and will eventually create planets," she said.