Hubble had shown the face-like structure and a hazy “mane” of comet-shaped features in visible light. Webb’s high-resolution near- and mid-infrared composite resolves the nebula’s shells, cavities, arcs, gas, and especially its complex dust distribution much more clearly.
MIRI makes warm dust and its varying structures prominent, while the combined infrared view exposes how dense dust clumps can shield material from the central star’s harsh radiation. Gas and dust are still interacting and being reshaped by stellar radiation and outflows, so the nebula is not a static object.
This lion-like configuration is temporary: as the ionized gas expands and thins, the nebula’s recognizable structure is expected to disperse on the order of another 10,000 years.
Webb is an international mission led by NASA, with the European Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency as partners. The agencies contributed to the observatory and its scientific capabilities: NIRCam is Webb’s near-infrared imager, while MIRI extends its vision into the mid-infrared; the image credits identify NASA, ESA, CSA, and the Space Telescope Science Institute.
Hubble had shown the face-like structure and a hazy “mane” of comet-shaped features in visible light. Webb’s high-resolution near- and mid-infrared composite resolves the nebula’s shells, cavities, arcs, gas, and especially its complex dust distribution much more clearly.
MIRI makes warm dust and its varying structures prominent, while the combined infrared view exposes how dense dust clumps can shield material from the central star’s harsh radiation. Gas and dust are still interacting and being reshaped by stellar radiation and outflows, so the nebula is not a static object.
This lion-like configuration is temporary: as the ionized gas expands and thins, the nebula’s recognizable structure is expected to disperse on the order of another 10,000 years.
Webb is an international mission led by NASA, with the European Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency as partners. The agencies contributed to the observatory and its scientific capabilities: NIRCam is Webb’s near-infrared imager, while MIRI extends its vision into the mid-infrared; the image credits identify NASA, ESA, CSA, and the Space Telescope Science Institute.