08/04/2024
Bullseye 🎯
Wolf-Rayet 140 may look a bit familiar to archers and sharpshooters competing at the this week.
This Webb target is composed of at least 17 concentric dust rings, emanating from a pair of stars located just over 5,000 light-years from Earth. Before Webb turned its precise eye towards this stellar duo, ground-based telescopes were only able to see two dust rings.
Each ring was created when the two stars came close together, compressing the gas and forming dust. The stars’ orbits bring them together about once every eight years — the length of two Summer Olympics from now!
Learn more: https://go.nasa.gov/4ft4EBy
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, JPL-Caltech