r/jameswebb

Observing across the starry “plains” of space, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has taken images of NGC 2392, nicknamed the Lion Nebula.

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope previously viewed this planetary nebula in 2000, imaging the lion face-shaped target in visible light and revealing features such as the “mane” of hazy, comet-shaped objects. Now Webb has captured a clearer, more detailed view of the Lion Nebula due to its high-resolution imaging.

At first glance the nebula’s overall structure in Webb’s infrared images, both with the NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid Infrared Instrument), may look quite similar to Hubble's earlier visible-light view. However, Webb's infrared vision highlights features like compact clumps of dust and haze of ionised gas. It’s taken several thousand years for this collection of gas and dust to reach its current shape, and the nebula’s components continue to be altered.

The source of these constant changes and the reason for the Lion Nebula’s distinct appearance is located at the centre: the remains of a dying star. Though it looks like the button nose of the lion, its energy and radiation are powering the intricate structures seen here.

Massive stars undergo supernova explosions at the end of their lives, but these kinds of events are far and few between. Most of the Universe’s stars have lower masses, like the one belonging to NGC 2392. When a lower-mass star can no longer sustain itself with nuclear reactions in its core, the star becomes unstable and pulsates, losing its mass by shedding its outer layers, which then turn into shells of gas and dust called a planetary nebula (stars at this life stage are responsible for producing much of the Universe’s observable dust). The star’s radiation drives the ejected material away, leaving behind the very hot stellar core, also known as a white dwarf.

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More

https://esawebb.org/news/weic2616/

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/lion-nebula-roars-to-life-with-nasas-webb/

https://www.esa.int/ESA\_Multimedia/Images/2026/08/Lion\_Nebula\_roars\_to\_life\_for\_Webb​

Astronomers have caught a quasar in a fleeting, violent evolutionary transition. Nicknamed “The Hatchling” (cataloged as JADES-GS 209777), the brilliant cosmic engine is actively blasting away the dense cloud of gas and star-forming dust that kept it hidden during its early growth. 

Quasars, or quasi-stellar objects (QSOs), are active galactic nuclei (AGN) in the centers of active galaxies, which showcase very high luminosity and are powered by supermassive black holes (SMBHs). They emit electromagnetic radiation observable in radio, infrared, visible, ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths.

For decades, theoretical models suggested that every brilliant quasar begins its life buried deep inside a thick, opaque cocoon of cosmic debris. This “red quasar” phase hides the central engine until its own violent energetic feedback blows the dust away. Yet, capturing an object in the exact act of shedding this envelope has proven notoriously difficult because the transition is brief on a cosmic timescale.

That is precisely what makes JADES-GS 209777 so extraordinary: by combining the extreme infrared vision of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) with millimeter views from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a team of researchers led by Zheng Ma of the University of Arizona captured high-velocity outflows of gas actively punching holes in the dust, giving humanity a front-row seat to a black hole’s dramatic grand entrance.

“We do not yet have a reliable estimate of how common—or how short-lived—this phase is. The observational challenge is that identifying such a transitional phase requires multiwavelength data revealing several features simultaneously: a directly visible active nucleus, substantial surrounding gas and dust, and outflows that may be clearing or redistributing that material. Therefore, the phase may not be intrinsically extremely rare; it may simply be difficult to recognize,” Ma told Universelost.com.

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Red is filter f444w-f470n, Hot H₂. Green is f187n, H⁺, blue is f115w, a general filter.
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI.