The Sundarban 
This image residing showcases three views of the Butterfly Nebula, that contains an optical and shut to-infrared stare from Hubble (left and heart) and the most up-to-date Webb/ALMA image. Credit score: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, J. Kastner, Okay. Noll, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, J. Kastner, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)
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The planetary nebula NGC 6302 is one the most-studied of cosmic entities of its form, with a neatly-known form and wonderful colors that dwell up to its “Butterfly Nebula” nickname. But as a result of James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers are gaining method more insights into the formation situated about 3,400 light-years from Earth. Their findings, revealed within the Monthly Notices of the Royal Wide Society, are filling within the gaps in figuring out how a rocky planet’s ingredients are born.
“We were in a position to stumble on every frigid gemstones fashioned in peaceful, long-lasting zones and fiery grime created in violent, rapid-transferring parts of space, all within a single object,” Cardiff College lead researcher Mikako Matsuura said in a assertion.
Opposite to its name, a planetary nebula isn’t the build planets produce. The misnomer dates support centuries, when great decrease-energy telescopes made them seem spherical to astronomers. More detailed glimpses revealed that these celestial objects take varied shapes, and are created when a neatly-known particular person between 0.8 and eight cases the dimensions of our solar starts shedding its mass shut to the raze of its lifestyles, when it within the raze goes nova. Planetary nebulae are uncommon sights, in fragment because they simplest closing around 20,000 years.
![The Sundarban This image takes the viewer on a deep dive into the heart of the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302. The Butterfly Nebula, located about 3400 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius, is one of the best-studied planetary nebulae in our galaxy. Planetary nebulae are among the most beautiful and most elusive creatures in the cosmic zoo. These nebulae form when stars with masses between about 0.8 and 8 times the mass of the Sun shed most of their mass at the end of their lives. The planetary nebula phase is fleeting, lasting only about 20 000 years. At the centre of the Butterfly Nebula is the ancient core of a Sun-like star that energises the surrounding nebula and causes it to glow. This scorching central star is hidden from view at optical wavelengths, but Webb’s infrared capabilities have revealed the star and its surroundings in great detail. This image, which combines infrared data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope with submillimetre observations from the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA), shows the doughnut-shaped torus and interconnected bubbles of dusty gas that surround the nebula’s central star. The torus is oriented vertically and nearly edge-on from our perspective, and it intersects with bubbles of gas enclosing the star. The bubbles appear bright red in this image, illuminated by the light from helium and neon gas. Outside the bubbles, jets traced by emission from ionised iron shoot off in opposite directions. These features are labeled in an annotated version of this image. [Image description: The complicated structure at the centre of the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302. There is a bright source at the centre that is surrounded by greenish nebulosity and several looping lines in cream, orange and pink. One of these lines appears to form a ring oriented vertically and nearly edge-on around the bright source at the centre. Other lines trace out a figure eight shape. Moving outward from these complex lines and green nebulosity, there is a section of red light on either side of the object. The upper-right and lower-left corners of this image show a purple streak pointing out of the image.]](https://i0.wp.com/www.popsci.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Butterfly-Nebula-Close.jpeg?w=696&ssl=1 "The Sundarban")
This image takes the viewer on a deep dive into the coronary heart of the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302. The Butterfly Nebula, situated about 3,400 light-years away within the constellation Scorpius, is one in every of the most attention-grabbing-studied planetary nebulae in our galaxy. Credit score
ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb) ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)
NGC 6302 is thought of as a bipolar nebula. It has two sections spreading out in reverse instructions in a pattern similar to butterfly wings, with a dim space of gasoline on the heart forming the butterfly’s body. While this mid fragment is in actuality tire-formed, it looks flattened when viewed from right here on Earth. This location also obscures NGC 6302’s feeble, stellar core. Blazing at a temperature of around 395,540 levels Fahrenheit, it’s one in every of the most up to this point of any acknowledged planetary nebula within the Milky Come galaxy.
All of that vitality is accountable for creating the numerous minerals and organic materials detected by JWST’s Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) as they spew from reverse jetstreams. The most up-to-date observations present a enormous wavelength spectrum stumble on on the Butterfly Nebula’s dense band of gasoline acknowledged as a torus. Astronomers confirmed nearly 200 spectral lines, every containing files about the nebula’s swirling concoction of atoms and molecules.
“For years, scientists have debated how cosmic dust kinds in space. But now, with the support of the powerful James Webb Space Telescope, we could well within the raze have a clearer image,” said Matsuura.
![The Sundarban This annotated image takes the viewer on a deep dive into the heart of the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302, as seen by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. The Butterfly Nebula, located about 3400 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius, is one of the best-studied planetary nebulae in our galaxy. Planetary nebulae are among the most beautiful and most elusive creatures in the cosmic zoo. These nebulae form when stars with masses between about 0.8 and 8 times the mass of the Sun shed most of their mass at the end of their lives. The planetary nebula phase is fleeting, lasting only about 20 000 years. At the centre of the Butterfly Nebula is the ancient core of a Sun-like star that energises the surrounding nebula and causes it to glow. This scorching central star is hidden from view at optical wavelengths, but Webb’s infrared capabilities have revealed the star and its surroundings in great detail. This image, which combines infrared data from Webb with submillimetre observations from the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA), shows the doughnut-shaped torus and interconnected bubbles of dusty gas that surround the nebula’s central star. The torus is oriented vertically and nearly edge-on from our perspective, and it intersects with bubbles of gas enclosing the star. The bubbles appear bright red in this image, illuminated by the light from helium and neon gas. Outside the bubbles, jets traced by emission from ionised iron shoot off in opposite directions. [Image description: The complicated structure at the centre of the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302. There is a bright source at the centre of the image, labeled ‘dying star’. This is surrounded by greenish nebulosity and several looping lines in cream, orange and pink. One of these lines appears to form a ring oriented vertically and nearly edge-on around the bright source at the centre. This ring is labeled in several different places to indicate the near and far sides of a structure called the torus, a dust lane running along the torus and an area where the torus is ionised. Other lines trace out a figure eight shape. These lines are labeled to indicate the inner bubble as well as where the bubble intersects with the torus. Moving outward from these complex lines and green nebulosity, there is a section of red light on either side of the object, labeled ‘outer bubble’. The upper-right and lower-left corners of this image show a purple streak pointing out of the image. These purple streaks are labeled ‘jet’.]](https://i0.wp.com/www.popsci.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Butterfly-Nebula-Diagram.jpeg?w=696&ssl=1 "The Sundarban")
This annotated image takes the viewer on a deep dive into the coronary heart of the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302, as considered by the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit score: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, M. Zamani ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)
Most cosmic dust shows random atomic buildings, and looks like soot. Thanks to NGC 6302’s vulgar stellar vitality, the nebula’s particles fuse into different materials. These embody crystalline silicates like quartz, as neatly as glimmering metals similar to iron and nickel.
The gaze’s authors were namely vastly stunned by the invention of carbon-basically basically based molecules called polycyclic fragrant hydrocarbons (PAHs) within the Butterfly Nebula. These honeycomb-formed chemical parts are most on the overall chanced on on Earth in automobile utilize, woodsmoke, and burnt toast. The group infamous that this procure could well be the first concrete evidence of PAHs forming inside a planetary nebula, and can support state the build such molecules manufacture in space.
Planetary nebulae could well not produce true planets like Earth, nonetheless they attain intention like factories that churn out a carbon-rich planet’s parts. With more time and files, astronomers collectively with Matsuura hope to present even higher insights about the build our home—and by extension all lifestyles—originated.
“This discovery is a gargantuan step forward in figuring out how the fundamental materials of planets contrivance collectively,” he said.
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