Overview
- NASA, ESA and partner teams released James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam and MIRI images of NGC 2392 on Monday, August 10, showing far finer infrared detail than Hubble’s 2000 visible-light view.
- The images confirm a hot white dwarf at the nebula’s center is powering an expanding bubble of ionized gas that shapes the lionlike ‘face’ and destroys some dust in its path.
- Webb’s infrared view highlights compact, cometary tail–like dust clumps that survive the star’s radiation and a surrounding dust shell that forms the nebula’s ‘mane.’
- Spectral signatures seen in the MIRI and NIRCam data reveal molecules and different dust grains, giving astronomers new tools to study dust chemistry and how rings and shells form around dying stars.
- Scientists are now analyzing the morphology and spectra to test formation models and to connect these processes to the supply of raw materials for future star and planet formation.