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Context: Astronomers are observing the wheel-shaped NGC 1514 nebula for over three centuries. William Herschel said in 1790 that it was the first deep-sky nebula to appear cloudy. He couldn’t see individual stars in it, unlike star clusters. Scientists are studying the nebula more closely thanks to the Webb Telescope, which is helping them to better understand the interstellar clouds.
NASA released stunning images on Monday of the NGC1514 nebula. The most vivid depiction ever captured of its dual rings. The Webb telescope’s Mid-Infrared instrument (MIRI) produced the high-resolution, composite image. This view is clearer than the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer’s (WISE), whose images only showed fuzzy details of the rings. (See the side-by-side images below.)
Astronomers studied NGC 1514 in the 1700s. In 2010, Mike Ressler captured it in the highest possible detail with WISE. He says that the Webb images are superior to those captured earlier, allowing him and colleagues to study the NGC 1514 in greater detail. The researchers can draw more accurate conclusions on the formation of the nebula because the images are clearer. Ressler said
“Before Webb, we weren’t able to detect most of this material, let alone observe it so clearly,” . “With MIRI’s data, we can now comprehensively examine the turbulent nature of this nebula.”
“star” is actually two stars. David Jones, a senior researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics on the Canary Islands, confirmed that the NGC-1514 system is binary. The stars appear to be one due their close orbit of nine years, which causes prominent diffraction peaks. One of the stars used to be many times as massive as our Sun. Over thousands of years it shed its mass and eventually became a white dwarf. Jones. “Once the star’s outer layers were expelled, only its hot, compact core remained. As a white dwarf star, its winds both sped up and weakened, which might have swept up material into thin shells.”
According to the researchers, NGC 1514 lacks some elements that are typically found in nebulae. Most notably, it is missing carbon. It lacks polycyclic hydrocarbons (a complex form carbon that is commonly found in similar formations). The scientists suspect that these molecules did not have time to form because the binary stars orbit was elongated, causing the material to be ejected. The Webb telescope detected oxygen in the dust around the holes of the pinkish cloud.
A bright star appears lower left to the central binary but it’s not part of the system. This third prominent object is much closer than the NGC 1514 Nebula, which is roughly 1,500 light years away. Its relative brightness shows how bright the binary stars of the nebula are in comparison.
