NASA's James Webb Telescope Captures "Giant Space Tarantula" In Stunning New Image

A "giant space tarantula" has been caught by NASA's powerful James Webb Telescope. At 161,000 light years away from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy, the Tarantula Nebula is the nickname for 30 Doradus - the largest and brightest star-forming region in the Local Group, the galaxies nearest our Milky Way, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 

"Take a moment to stare into the thousands of never-before-seen young stars in the Tarantula Nebula. @NASAWebb reveals details of the structure and composition of the nebula, as well as dozens of background galaxies," the US space agency wrote on Instagram while sharing a mesmerising image of the "space tarantula". 

Take a look below: 

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Resembling a burrowing tarantula's home line with its silk, the Tarantula Nebula houses the hottest and most massive stars known to astronomers, NASA explained. It said that the Webb telescope's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) has helped researchers see the region in "new light, including tens of thousands of never-before-seen young stars that were previously shrouded in cosmic dust". 

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The densest surrounding areas of the nebula resist erosion by these stars' powerful winds, forming pillars that seem to point back toward the cluster and hold forming protostars. These protostars emerge from their "dusty cocoons" and help shape the nebula. 

NASA stated that the Webb Telescope's Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) caught a very young star doing that, which changed astronomers' previous beliefs about the star. "Astronomers previously thought this star might be a bit older and already in the process of clearing out a bubble around itself."

"However, NIRSpec showed that the star was only just beginning to emerge from its pillar and still maintained an insulating cloud of dust around itself. Without Webb's high-resolution spectra at infrared wavelengths, this episode of star formation in action could not have been revealed," the space agency said. 

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Viewing through another Webb instrument that detects longer infrared wavelengths, a "previously unseen cosmic environment" was then revealed. "The hot stars fade, and the cooler gas and dust glow. Within the stellar nursery clouds, points of light indicate embedded protostars, still gaining mass," as per NASA. 

The Tarantula Nebula has long been a focus of astronomers studying star formation because it has a chemical makeup similar to that of the gigantic star-forming regions at the universe's cosmic noon. Since star-forming regions in our galaxy don't produce stars at the same rate as the Tarantula Nebula and have a different chemical composition, the Tarantula is the closest example of what occurred in the universe as it reached high noon, the space agency explained.