NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has photographed one of the most famous planetary nebulae, the Ring Nebula, which demonstrates the complex structures of the last stages of a dying star.

This is stated on the website of the space agency, where photos of the nebula were also published.

According to Roger Wesson of the University of Cardiff, planetary nebulae were previously thought to be simple round objects with a single dying star in the centre. They got their name because when observing them with small telescopes, astronomers had the impression that they were seeing a planet.

However, new research conducted thanks to JWST has provided scientists with new data on the formation and evolution of these objects, hinting at the key role of binary companions.

Wesson claims that for only a few thousand years, the star at the centre of the Ring Nebula "was a red giant that was losing most of its mass".

Now, in the last moments of its life, the core is heating the gas emitted by the star, to which it reacts with colourful light emission.

The scientist also said that modern observations show that most planetary nebulae are extremely complex, so it is likely that such complex and non-spherical structures were created not only by one spherical star.

"The Ring Nebula is an ideal target for unravelling some of the mysteries of planetary nebulae," said Wesson.

This nebula is located about 2200 light-years from Earth, and it is bright enough to be observed even with binoculars on a clear summer evening from the northern hemisphere and most of the southern hemisphere.

To better study this nebula, scientists used JWST instruments such as the NIRCam, a near-infrared camera, and the MIRI, a mid-infrared instrument. The Webb Telescope took the necessary photos, and the scientists were stunned by the amount of detail in them.

"The bright ring that gives the nebula its name is made up of about 20,000 individual clumps of dense molecular hydrogen gas, each about as massive as the Earth," NASA's website says.

Inside the ring there is a narrow band of emission from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, which are complex carbon-containing molecules. Scientists admit that they did not expect to see them there.

"Outside the bright ring, we see interesting 'spikes' pointing directly from the central star, which are visible in the infrared, but were very faintly visible in the Hubble Space Telescope images. We believe that these may be molecules that can form in the shadow of the densest parts of the ring, protected from the direct, intense radiation of the hot central star," the report says.

The MIRI image also gave scientists a better look at the molecular halo outside the bright ring.

"An unexpected discovery was the presence of up to ten evenly spaced concentric objects in this faint halo. These arcs must have formed approximately every 280 years when the central star shed its outer layers," the scientists note.

At the same time, they explain that scientists do not know the process of evolution of a star into a planetary nebula, which would have such a time period.

"These rings indicate that there must be a companion star in the system that orbits at the same distance from the central star as Pluto does from our Sun. As the dying star ejected its atmosphere, the companion star formed an outflow and moulded it. No previous telescope had sufficient sensitivity and spatial resolution to detect this subtle effect," the scientists point out.

They are convinced that it is thanks to the companion star that such a complex nebula was formed.

Earlier, OBOZREVATEL also reported that a NASA telescope had discovered an intriguing detail about the most distant star in the Universe.

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