"What we're seeing in the nebula is, in a sense, a moment of death that lays the groundwork for a new birth. The dying star (out of frame in the closer new image) sheds its outer layers. As expelled gas and dust cool, they provide raw material that could someday form new stars and perhaps planetary systems. The new image from Webb's NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) provides a much closer, higher-resolution view. Those pillars you see are called cometary knots, and this image is our best view of those to date."
""Here, blistering winds of hot gas from the dying star are crashing into colder shells of dust and gas that were shed earlier in its life, sculpting the nebula's remarkable structure," the ESA wrote in its press release. The knots' colors represent temperature and chemistry. Hints of blue indicate the hottest gas (energized by ultraviolet light). The yellow regions, where hydrogen atoms form molecules, are farther from the nebula's nucleus (and therefore cooler). On the edges, reddish-orange regions depict the coolest material, where gas thins and dust begins to form."
The Helix Nebula lies in Aquarius about 655 light-years away and ranks among Earth's closest planetary nebulae. A dying central star has shed outer layers, and expelled gas and dust cool to provide raw material for future stars and planetary systems. JWST's NIRCam produced a much closer, higher-resolution infrared view revealing pillar-like cometary knots. Blistering winds of hot gas from the dying star collide with colder shells of earlier ejected material, sculpting the nebula. Knot colors map temperature and chemistry: blue shows hottest, yellow marks regions where hydrogen forms molecules farther from the nucleus, and reddish-orange indicates the coolest dust-forming edges.
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