The James Webb Space Telescope captured this beautiful scene of celestial destruction and chaos, as cosmic dust is sculpted and blown away by the vigorous energy of massive newborn stars.
Pismis 24 is a young star cluster in the heart of the Lobster Nebula, which is 5,500 lightyears from Earth and visible in the constellation Scorpius.
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This star cluster is a vibrant stellar nursery, and one of the closest sites of massive star birth to Earth.
As a result, Webb's observations of Pismis 24 are giving scientists amazing insight into the birth and evolution of large, massive stars.
Scientists say this region is one of the best places to investigate the properties of hot young stars and how they change over time.
Honing in on a stellar behemoth
At the heart of the star cluster is Pismis 24-1, an enormous star that appears as the largest of a central clump just above the jagged orange peaks.
Each of these stars sports the James Webb Space Telescope's distinctive diffraction spikes, which are a result of the physical structure of the telescope's optics.
Pismis 24-1 was once thought to be among the most massive known stars, but astronomers now know it is in fact at least two stars.
At 74 and 66 times as massive as our own Sun, respectively, they're still among the most massive, most luminous stars ever seen.
The stars of Pismis 24 are captured in infrared light by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera).
The largest and most brilliant in the image are the most massive stars in the cluster.
Hundreds to thousands of smaller stars appear in white, yellow, and red, their colour revealing their stellar type and how much cosmic dust is surrounding them.
In the background, tens of thousands of stars can be seen, which are all part of our Milky Way galaxy.
Close view of a dusty stellar nursery
The colourful wisps and jagged peaks seen in the image are part of the overall nebula enveloping this stellar nursery.
Clouds of dust and gas, nebulae contain the ingredients for new stars to be born.
However, there's a twist, because newborn stars glow with intense radiation that sculpts and destroys the very ingredients out of which they were born.
Some of the super-hot infant stars in this scene are almost 8 times the temperature of the Sun.
The nebula seen here extends beyond Webb's field of view; small portions are visible at the bottom and top right of the image.
Hot, ionised gas flows from the ridges of the nebula, while wisps of gas and dust are illuminated by starlight.
The dark, dramatic spires are concentrated regions, dense with dust, the tallest spanning 5.4 lightyears from the tip to the bottom of the image.
In this image, the colour cyan represents hot or ionised hydrogen gas heated up by massive young stars.
Smoke-lie dust molecules are seen in orange, while red indcates cooler, denser molecular hydrogen.
The darker the red, the denser the gas.
Black regions are the densest gas, not emitting any light, while wispy white regions are dust and gas scattering starlight.
