The Red Spider Nebula Gets Its JWST Glow-Up

The Red Spider Nebula gets its JWST glow-up

All throughout the cosmos, planetary nebulae appear. When lower-mass, Sun-like stars run out of fuel, they blow off their outer layers in a planetary nebula, but the center contracts down to form a white dwarf, which takes a very long time to fade to darkness. Some white dwarfs will shine for trillions of years; others are on their way to an inevitable supernova when they collide with another white dwarf or accumulate enough mass to detonate. C…

A New Image of the Red Spider Nebula Captures the Radiance of a Dying Star

When viewed through early telescopes, some nebula appeared round, so astronomers in the 18th and 19th centuries likened them to planets. These so-called planetary nebulae, having actually nothing to do with planets, are formed when a star—of a type similar to the Sun—emits huge amounts of ionized gases as it reaches the end of its life. In late October, the James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) captured this dramatic and bea…