NASA’s Webb Space Telescope Captures a Cosmic Tarantula
This mosaic image, which spans 340 light-years, was captured by Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). Tens of thousands of newly discovered newborn stars that were previously hidden by cosmic dust are shown, together with a new perspective on the star-forming region of the Tarantula Nebula. The most active region is pale blue and seems to be glistening with enormous young stars. Red stars that are still embedded in the nebula's dust and have not yet broken free of its cocoon are strewn among them. Due to its unrivaled resolution at near-infrared wavelengths, NIRCam is able to identify these dust-covered stars. An older star conspicuously exhibits NIRCam's signature eight diffraction spikes, a feature of the telescope's design, towards the top of the nebula's cavity, to the upper left of the cluster of young stars. This star's top central spike almost shoots upward toward a characteristic bubble in the cloud. This bubble is being blown by young stars as they star...