2 stars in 'serpent god of destruction' system are hurling their blazing guts at each other, James Webb telescope reveals
The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a stunning new image of two dying stars wreathed in a spiral of dust.
The highly rare star system is located some 8,000 light-years from Earth, within our Milky Way galaxy. Upon its discovery in 2018, it was nicknamed Apep, after the ancient Egyptian serpent god of chaos and destruction, as its writhing pattern of shed dust resembles a snake eating its own tail.
Now, a new image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured the system in unprecedented detail, revealing that it doesn't contain just one dying star, but two — with a third star chomping on their dust shrouds. The researchers published their findings July 19 in two papers on the preprint server arXiv, and they have not been peer-reviewed yet.
"We expected Apep to look like one of these elegant pinwheel nebulas," study co-author Benjamin Pope, a professor in statistical data science at Macquarie University in Sydney, wrote in The Conversation. "To our surprise, it did not."
Nebulas such as these are formed by Wolf-Rayet stars. These rare, slowly dying stars have lost their outer hydrogen shells, leaving them to spew gusts of ionized helium, carbon and nitrogen from their insides.
Wolf-Rayet stars explode as supernovas after a few million years of sputtering, at most. But until then, the radiation pressure from their light unfurls their innards, stretching them out into giant phantom jellyfish in the night sky.
Related: Space photo of the week: James Webb telescope reveals mysterious 'light echo' in the broken heart of Cassiopeia
These superheated contents, especially carbon dust that is later recycled into planets and the material in our own bodies, is so hot that it glows brightly in the infrared spectrum. By capturing these infrared photons with the Very Large Telescope in Chile, astronomers got their first peek at the system in 2018.
Now, by training JWST's sensitive Mid-Infrared Instrument on Apep, the team has captured it in even more detail, revealing it to be even more unusual than first thought.
RELATED STORIES
—James Webb telescope shocks scientists with image of ancient galaxy roaring back to life
—Dry ice 'geysers' erupt on Mars as spring hits the Red Planet
—James Webb and Hubble telescopes unite to solve 'impossible' planet mystery
"It turns out Apep isn't just one powerful star blasting a weaker companion, but two Wolf-Rayet stars," Pope wrote. "The rivals have near-equal strength winds, and the dust is spread out in a very wide cone and wrapped into a wind-sock shape."
Making the situation even more complex is a third star — a stable giant that's carving out a cavity in the dust spit out by its dying siblings.
Beyond making for a stunning picture, Pope said, studying Apep could tell us more about how stars die and the carbon dust they leave behind.
"The violence of stellar death carves puzzles that would make sense to Newton and Archimedes, and it is a scientific joy to solve them and share them," Pope wrote.
Solve the daily Crossword
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Newly spotted comet marks third interstellar object seen in solar system
STORY: :: NASA/ATLAS/University of Hawaii Astronomers are tracking a newly spotted visitor to our solar system. :: K Ly at Deep Random Survey :: Olivier Hainaut et al./European Southern Observatory The object, likely a comet, is named 3I/ATLAS and hails from parts unknown. It's only the third time such an interstellar interloper has been observed in Earth's celestial neighborhood. :: David Jewitt/NASA/ESA/Space Telescope Science Institute NASA said it was first spotted on July 1 by an Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS, telescope, located in Chile. :: Catalina Sky Survey/D Rankin The object is traveling at a speed of around 37 miles per second from the direction of the center of the Milky Way galaxy, and astronomers agree the presumed comet poses no threat to Earth... It will come no closer than 150 million miles away, about 1-1/2 times the distance between Earth and the sun. However, Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb has made waves in academic circles with his co-authored paper, 'Is the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS alien technology?" :: Catalina Sky Survey/D Rankin In it, Loeb and two other researchers argue that due to other unusual characteristics, it could actually be an alien probe on a mission. :: Olivier Hainaut et al./European Southern Observatory While Loeb concedes the object may in fact be a comet, he argues it's important for scientists not to rule out any possibilities. "The unusual trajectory of this object offers the possibility that it might have been designed so as to have some goals of a reconnaissance mission." MEECH: "It's irresponsible science.' :: NASA/ATLAS/University of Hawaii Karen Meech, a planetary astronomer at the University of Hawaii's Institute of Astronomy, dismisses the idea. 'This is just coincidence, the path that it comes through the solar system. There's a perfectly natural explanation for this. It is behaving like a regular comet. // It's developing a little tail, it's getting brighter as it gets closer to the sun. We know a few things about it, but everyone's intensively studying it..." :: Olivier Hainaut et al./European Southern Observatory 3I/ATLAS will reach its closest approach to the sun around October 30, when it will be about 130 million miles away from our star. :: File The only other such interstellar visitors were objects called 1I/'Oumuamua, detected in 2017, and 2I/Borisov, discovered in 2019. Reuters / NASA/ATLAS/University of Hawaii / CATALINA SKY SURVEY/D RANKIN / DAVID JEWITT/NASA/ESA/SPACE TELESCOPE SCIENCE INSTITUTE / RUBINOBS/NOIRLAB/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA / K Ly at Deep Random Survey / Olivier Hainaut et al./European Southern Observatory / ONLINE WEBSITE Solve the daily Crossword
NBC News
2 hours ago
- NBC News
Radar satellite launched by India and NASA will track minuscule changes to Earth's land and ice
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA and India paired up to launch an Earth-mapping satellite on Wednesday capable of tracking even the slightest shifts in land and ice. The $1.3 billion mission will help forecasters and first responders stay one step ahead of floods, landslides, volcanic eruptions and other disasters, according to scientists. Rocketing to orbit from India, the satellite will survey virtually all of Earth's terrain multiple times. Its two radars — one from the U.S. and the other from India — will operate day and night, peering through clouds, rain and foliage to collect troves of data in extraordinary detail. Microwave signals beamed down to Earth from the dual radars will bounce back up to the satellite's super-sized antenna reflector perched at the end of a boom like a beach umbrella. Scientists will compare the incoming and outgoing signals as the spacecraft passes over the same locations twice every 12 days, teasing out changes as small as a fraction of an inch. 'Congratulations India!' India's minister of science and technology, Jitendra Singh, said via X once the satellite safely reached orbit. The mission 'will benefit the entire world community.' NASA's deputy associate administrator Casey Swails, part of a small delegation that traveled to India for the launch, said it 'really shows the world what our two nations can do. But more so than that, it really is a pathfinder for the relationship building.' It will take a full week to extend the satellite's 30-foot boom and open the 39-foot-in-diameter drum-shaped reflector made of gold-plated wire mesh. Science operations should begin by the end of October. Among the satellite's most pressing measurements: melting glaciers and polar ice sheets; shifting groundwater supplies; motion and stress of land surfaces prompting landslides and earthquakes; and forest and wetland disruptions boosting carbon dioxide and methane emissions. It's 'a first-of-its-kind, jewel radar satellite that will change the way we study our home planet and better predict a natural disaster before it strikes,' NASA's science mission chief Nicky Fox said ahead of liftoff. She was part of the NASA delegation that attended the launch in person. NASA is contributing $1.2 billion to the three-year mission; it supplied the low-frequency radar and reflector. The Indian Space Research Organization's $91 million share includes the higher-frequency radar and main satellite structure, as well as the launch from a barrier island in the Bay of Bengal. It's the biggest space collaboration between the two countries. The satellite called NISAR — short for NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar — will operate from a near-polar-circling orbit 464 miles high. It will join dozens of Earth observation missions already in operation by the U.S. and India.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Moon phase today: What the moon will look like on July 30, 2025
The moon is becoming more lit up each night as we progress through the lunar cycle. The lunar cycle is a series of eight unique phases of the moon's visibility. The whole cycle takes about 29.5 days, according to NASA, and these different phases happen as the Sun lights up different parts of the moon whilst it orbits Earth. So, what's happening tonight, July 30? What is today's moon phase? As of Wednesday, July 30, the moon phase is Waxing Crescent. There's 32% of the moon's surface visible to us on Earth (according to NASA's Daily Moon Observation). It's day six of the new lunar cycle, and there's a lot to see on the moon's surface. With the unaided eye, enjoy a glimpse of the Mare Crisium and the Mare Fecunditatis, an impact basin also known as the "Sea of Fertility." Add binoculars and you'll also get a glimpse of the Endymion Crater and the Posidonius Crater, a lava-filled impact crater that's visible from the fifth to the 19th day of the lunar cycle. If you have a telescope, you'll also see the Apollo 17, the last moon landing of the Apollo program. Use NASA's interactive moon guide tool to know exactly where to look. When is the next full moon? The next full moon will be on August 9. The last full moon was on July 10. What are moon phases? According to NASA, moon phases are caused by the 29.5-day cycle of the moon's orbit, which changes the angles between the Sun, Moon, and Earth. Moon phases are how the moon looks from Earth as it goes around us. We always see the same side of the moon, but how much of it is lit up by the Sun changes depending on where it is in its orbit. This is how we get full moons, half moons, and moons that appear completely invisible. There are eight main moon phases, and they follow a repeating cycle: New Moon - The moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye). Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere). First Quarter - Half of the moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-moon. Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it's not quite full yet. Full Moon - The whole face of the moon is illuminated and fully visible. Waning Gibbous - The moon starts losing light on the right side. Last Quarter (or Third Quarter) - Another half-moon, but now the left side is lit. Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again. Solve the daily Crossword
