Only some massive stars go through the Wolf-Rayet phase in their life cycle: a particularly bright and brief state that precedes their implosion into a supernova.
A supernova is an extremely bright event that occurs before the celestial object collapses into a neutron star, an extremely small and dense star.
The star WR 124 here is in the process of shedding its outer layers, which produces its characteristic halos of gas and dust. The star is thirty times the mass of our Sun and has already lost the equivalent of ten Suns of matter. As the gas moves away from WR 124 it cools, cosmic dust forms and glows in infrared light detectable in great detail by JWST instruments (read box).
The Origin of Cosmos Dust
The genesis of cosmic dust – which can survive a supernova explosion and contribute to the Universe’s overall “dust budget” – is of great interest to astronomers, as it is integral to how our Universe works.
Dust can shelter stars in formation, its grains can come together to form planets or even serve as a platform for the development of organic molecules that make up life as we know it.
In the Universe, a tiny speck of dust can have different fates, such as joining with others to become a cloud that harbors stars in formation. It may also provide a platform for the development of organic molecules that make up life as we know it. [Joyce Kang (STScI) – NASA, ESA, CSA]
Despite the many vital roles dust plays, there is still more of it in the cosmos than current theories about its formation can explain. The Universe is obviously operating with a “surplus dust budget”, underlines a communiqué from NASA.
The US space agency further explains that before Webb, astronomers simply did not have enough detailed information to explore questions of dust production in environments like WR 124. It is difficult to know “if its grains were sufficiently large and abundant to survive the supernova and become a significant contributor to the global dust budget.” From now on, these questions can be studied with real data.
Stephanie Jaquet