{"id":115584,"date":"2025-11-01T07:43:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T07:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/115584\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T07:43:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T07:43:12","slug":"webb-embraces-spooky-season-with-red-spider-nebula-portrait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/115584\/","title":{"rendered":"Webb Embraces Spooky Season With Red Spider Nebula Portrait"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-perfmatters-preload=\"\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/red-spider-nebula-1600x840-1.jpg\" alt=\"A vibrant nebula with a glowing red center and intricate blue and pink filaments stretches across a star-filled background in outer space. Many bright stars are scattered throughout the scene.\" width=\"1600\" height=\"840\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-823206\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>The NASA\/ESA\/CSA <a href=\"https:\/\/petapixel.com\/2024\/07\/20\/the-james-webb-space-telescopes-10-best-space-photos-so-far\/\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">James Webb Space Telescope<\/a> got into the spooky season spirit this week by capturing a \u201ccosmic creepy-crawly called NGC 6537,\u201d more commonly referred to as the Red Spider Nebula. <\/p>\n<p>Using Webb\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/Science_Exploration\/Space_Science\/Webb\/Webb_s_instruments\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"follow external noopener nofollow\">Near InfraRed Camera (NIRCam)<\/a>, scientists uncovered never-before-seen details in the hauntingly beautiful planetary nebula, which appears against a dense backdrop of stars and distant galaxies. <\/p>\n<p>A planetary nebula like the Red Spider Nebula actually has nothing to do with planets at all. Originally named \u201cplanetary nebula\u201d because they resembled planets to early astronomers, planetary nebulae like this form when fairly typical stars, not unlike the Sun, reach the end of their lives. As stars age and begin to die, they expand and then shed their outermost layers, eventually exposing their cores. This core continues to emit intense ultraviolet light, which \u201cionizes the cast-off material,\u201d causing it to glow. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe planetary nebula phase of a star\u2019s life is as fleeting as it is beautiful, lasting only a few tens of thousands of years,\u201d says the European Space Agency (ESA). Tens of thousands of years may sound like a lot, but it\u2019s merely a blink on the cosmic timescale. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/red-spider-nebula-full.jpg\" alt=\"A colorful nebula with bright red, blue, and pink clouds surrounds a glowing central star, set against a dense field of sparkling white stars in deep space.\" width=\"1596\" height=\"1600\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-823205\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>In Webb\u2019s stunning new portrait, the Red Spider Nebula\u2019s central star is easily visible, glowing slightly brighter than the \u201cwebs of dusty gas\u201d that surround it. What is not easily seen is a potential hidden companion star, which scientists hypothesize may also be in the central region. A \u201cstellar companion\u201d could help explain the nebula\u2019s shape, including its \u201cnarrow waist and wide outflows.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Thanks to Webb\u2019s infrared and near-infrared sensitivity, scientists have been able to discover exciting new details, including, for the first time, the full extent of the nebula\u2019s \u201coutstretched lobes,\u201d which form the spider\u2019s legs. These lobes appear in the image as blue and trace the light emitted by H2 molecules, which are two hydrogen atoms bonded together. These blue lobes extend out about three light-years. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/red-spider-nebula-close.jpg\" alt=\"A bright nebula surrounded by red and blue glowing gas and dust, with streaks radiating outward, set against a dark background filled with numerous stars scattered throughout.\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-823204\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cGas is also actively jetting out from the nebula\u2019s center, as these new Webb observations show. An elongated purple \u2018S\u2019 shape centered on the heart of the nebula follows the light from ionized iron atoms,\u201d ESA explains. \u201cThis feature marks where a fast-moving jet has emerged from near the nebula\u2019s central star and collided with material that was previously cast away by the star, sculpting the rippling structure of the nebula seen today.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Image credits: ESA\/Webb, NASA &amp; CSA, J. H. Kastner (Rochester Institute of Technology). Content used under <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/deed.en\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"follow external noopener nofollow\">CC BY 4.0 INT license<\/a>.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NASA\/ESA\/CSA James Webb Space Telescope got into the spooky season spirit this week by capturing a \u201ccosmic&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[908,61,60,31806,31807,13923,69667,82,247,5623],"class_list":{"0":"post-115584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-astronomy","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-jameswebbspacetelescope","12":"tag-jwst","13":"tag-nebula","14":"tag-planetarynebula","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-space","17":"tag-webb"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}