Key Takeaways:
- 1. James Webb Space Telescope captures images of four dust spirals around Wolf-Rayet stars in the Apep system.
- 2. The dust shells were formed over centuries by emissions from two stars on a 190-year orbit.
- 3. A third star in the system, previously unknown, is now proven to be gravitationally bound by Webb observations.
New images from the James Webb Space Telescope reveal four dust spirals surrounding Wolf-Rayet stars in the Apep system, formed over centuries by emissions from two stars on a 190-year orbit. The third star in the system was proven to be gravitationally bound through Webb observations. Apep is a unique system with rare orbital characteristics, shedding light on the formation and evolution of dust in colliding-wind binaries.
Insight: The Wolf-Rayet stars in the Apep system, currently 10-20 times the mass of the Sun, produce carbon-rich dust shells over a 25-year period. The dust, moving at high speeds, enabled clear observations through the James Webb Space Telescope's MIRI instrument. Future observations are needed to determine the exact distance of the stars from Earth.
This article was curated by memoment.jp from the feed source: The Debrief.
Read the original article here: https://thedebrief.org/james-webb-space-telescope-captures-stunning-images-of-repetitive-predictable-structures-in-a-rare-star-system/
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