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NGC 1514 as imaged by WISE on the left and Webb on the right. (Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NASA-JPL, Caltech, UCLA, Michael Ressler (NASA-JPL), Dave Jones (IAC)).

The rings around NGC 1514 were first discovered in 2010, but has never before been resolved in such exquisite detail. This cosmic scene has been forming over the last 4,000 years at least, and is expected to continue to evolve in the future. The nebula was formed by the interactions between a pair of stars in its heart, marked by the sharp diffraction spikes that only appear over the brightest and most concentrated sources of light. The stars follow a tight but elongated nine-year orbit and are draped in an arc of orange dust.

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured an image of the planetary nebula NGC 1514, at a distance of 15,000 lightyears in the constellation of Taurus. The planetary nebula consists of gas and dust shed by a dying star running out of nuclear fuel to sustain nuclear fusion. The Webb Space Telescope is sensitive to infrared frequencies of light, which makes the deep space observatory well-suited for studying dusty environments such as circumstellar disks and planetary nebulae. Infrared light passes more easily through obscuring clouds of gas and dust than light in optical frequencies. The observations have provided scientists with a window into understanding the chaotic environment in the dynamic nebula.

The violent deaths of stars

One of binary pair of stars was much more massive than the Sun, and violently dumped its outer layers when the core ran out of nuclear fuel. The compact core is a white dwarf star, that continues to burn in the residual heat of the nuclear furnace that fused hydrogen into helium. The nebula is at a 60 degree angle to the Earth, and it is likely that the object has an hourglass shape, with material spreading from the exploded, dead star. The orange dust is shaped into a V-shape near the waist. The rings are believed to be formed because of interactions between the dying star and its binary companion.

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