This animation shows the Hubble image (left) and JWST image (right) of the same region of the Lobster Nebula, NGC 6357, with the focus of the image being the stars of the cluster Pismis 24. The Hubble image is overlaid atop the JWST image to show the same features as seen in different wavelengths of light, with JWST revealing far more stars, gas, and dust across a wider variety of temperatures and emission features. (Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI, A. Pagan (STScI)/NASA, ESA and Jesús Maíz Apellániz (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain); Processing: E. Siegel)
JWST isn’t the first telescope to peer into this factory of star-birth some 5500 light-years away, but its views are the most educational.
All across our galactic plane, new stars are currently forming.
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This region of space shows a portion of the plane of the Milky Way, with three extended star-forming regions all side-by-side next to one another. The Omega Nebula (left), the Eagle Nebula (center), and Sharpless 2–54 (right), compose just a small fraction of a vast complex of gas and dust found all through the galactic plane that continuously lead to the formation of newborn stars. (Credit: European Southern Observatory)
Dense clouds of gas, under gravitation’s relentless influence, contract, triggering star-formation.
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Within the plane of the Milky Way, dark dust lanes are omnipresent, representing dense neutral gas clouds usually found within the galaxy’s spiral arms. Here, nebula NGC 6357, also known as the Lobster Nebula, shows the pink signatures of excited hydrogen, a telltale feature of new star formation, along with the blue glow of the reflected light from hot, newborn stars off of neutral matter. (Credit: ESO/VVV Survey/D. Minniti)
