James Webb: Images of the Horsehead Nebula

The NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope capture the most detailed images of the “mane” of the Horsehead Nebula at a distance of 1,300 light years from Earth. The nebula is located in the constellation Orion, south of the star Alnitak in Orion’s belt, and one of the regions of the Orion Cloud Complex.

James Webb: Images of the Horsehead Nebula

This is a of the best known nebulae. The swirling cloud of dust and gas of which it is composed resembles a horse’s head. The nebula was first recorded in 1888 by the Scottish Willamina Fleming at the Harvard University Observatory and is considered a factory for producing new stars in our galaxy.

“These images show the top of the ‘horse’s mane’ or edge of this impressive nebula, capturing the complexity of the region at unprecedented resolution.”, said a NASA spokesperson. The James Webb Telescope captures the region where a gas of cold hydrogen molecules (blue) mutates into activated, “ionized” hydrogen atoms (red).

According to NASA, the nebula is what astrophysicists call it “photodisintegration region or PDR”in which ultraviolet (UV) light from young and massive stars creates a bubble of reactively neutral, hot gas and dust, which surrounded by more ionized gases. “As the UV light evaporates the dust cloud, the dust particles are swept away from the cloud, carried along with the heated gas”NASA said in a statement commenting on the new photos and added: “James Webb detected a network of subtle features that track this movement. The observations also allowed astronomers to investigate how dust blocks and emits light and to better understand the multidimensional shape of the nebula.”

See images captured by the James Webb Telescope of the Horsehead Nebula