A stellar debut.
The James Webb Space Telescope captured an unprecedented look inside a vibrant and glittering cluster of newborn stars drifting in the cosmos — some nearly eight times hotter than the sun.
The stunning new images, released Thursday by NASA, showcase the Lobster Nebula — a dazzling orange and golden cloud of star-forming dust and gas housing a constellation of infant stars known as Pismis 24.
Scorching baby stars of varying shapes and sizes fill the core of the Lobster Nebula, located roughly 5,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius, according to the space agency.
A single light-year is 5.8 trillion miles.
“Home to a vibrant stellar nursery and one of the closest sites of massive star birth, Pismis 24 provides rare insight into large and massive stars,” NASA said in a news release.
“Its proximity to this makes this region one of the best places to explore the properties of hot young stars and how they evolve.”
Using infrared vision, the telescope cut through dusty interstellar clouds to reveal thousands of white, yellow, and red stars. The brightest are marked by six-pointed diffraction spikes, while tens of thousands more in the Milky Way shimmer in the background, the snaps show.
NASA said the young stars — some almost eight times hotter than the sun — emit intense radiation and powerful winds that sculpt the nebula into towering, mountain-like peaks seen in the new images.
The Lobster Nebula is among the closest and most accessible regions of intense star formation.
The region offers researchers a unique glimpse into a phase of cosmic evolution that forged numerous solar systems throughout the galaxy, according to space explorers.
Launched in 2021, the telescope is the largest and most powerful celestial lens ever sent into space.