A star system with rings of dust blowing out into the sky has been imaged by a telescope.
The author is Jonathan O'Callaghan.
The rings of dust are from a star system.
JPL-Caltech is a part of NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI.
A strange set of rings around a star system may be evidence for carbon that formed planets like Earth across the universe.
The system is located about 5600 light years away from Earth. The Wolf-Rayet star is eight times the mass of the sun and sheds material into space at the end of it's life. Our sun is 20 times larger than a supergiant star. The stars emit two rings of carbon-rich dust as they approach each other over the course of eight years.
The images taken in July show a lot more detail. Ryan Lau at the National Science Foundation's NOIRLab in Arizona said that the telescope spied more than 17 rings of dust. The rings are not perfect because of the angle from which we are observing the system and the stars, but they are very much real.
The eight-year cycle of dust formation is being traced. We were blown away by it. We didn't think we'd see that many rings.
It's not uncommon for star systems to have rings of dust. He says there are at least 15 that are known. This is the most detailed one that has been seen so far. There is nothing quite like seeing the series of shells further out. The power of JWST comes in that area.
The rings are about 70,000 times the distance between Earth and the sun. It is the farthest we have seen Wolf-Rayet dust live. That could affect the creation of stars and planets in the universe. Lau believes thatWolf-Rayet stars could be an important source of carbon.
Nature Astronomy is published in a journal.
The journal's title is " Nature."
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