NASA has revealed a new image from its James Webb telescope that shows a "fingerprint-like" cosmic dust ring that's over a century in the making.
The image shows at least 17 dust rings created by a rare type of star and its companion locked in a celestial dance, the space agency said. It said astronomers were only able to see two dust rings using ground-based telescopes.
"Each ring was created when the two stars came close together, and their stellar winds met, compressing the gas and forming dust," NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said.
"The stars’ orbits bring them together about once every eight years - like the growth of rings of a tree’s trunk, the dust loops mark the passage of time."
The University of Auckland's Jan Eldridge said the photo of the dust rings was "exciting" for astrophysicists to examine. (Source: Breakfast)
Speaking to Breakfast, University of Auckland astrophysicist Jan Eldridge said the new image was an "exciting" one for astrophysicists to look at.
"It's an image that you looked at, and the first thing you say is that 'it can't be true, that's got to be fake.' [The rings are] just so regular and, almost, beautiful," he said.
"We've seen some of these before with the Hubble Space Telescope, but the [James Webb] has been able to show that this is then producing all that dust in these rings."
The expert said there was insight from the new photo as "it's taken centuries for the stars to actually produce this dust."
"Because it's every eight years - it's making one of these rings - we can actually see into the history of this star as well. It's remarkable.
Eldridge has helped to co-author a new paper, alongside 32 peers from around the world, which helps to explain how the dust rings are formed.
It was published yesterday in Nature, the prestigious science journal, coinciding with the release of the new image.
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