![]() The second star appears more clearly in the MIRI image, because this instrument can see the gleaming dust around it, bringing it more clearly into view. ![]() MIRI goes farther into the infrared, picking up mid-infrared wavelengths. NIRCam observes near-infrared light, which is closer to the visible wavelengths our eyes detect. The images look very different because NIRCam and MIRI collect different wavelengths of light. Both stars are lighting up the outer regions, shown in orange and blue, respectively. Today, the white dwarf is heating up the gas in the inner regions - which appear blue in the left-hand image and red in the right-hand image. Stellar material was sent in all directions - like a rotating sprinkler - and provided the ingredients for this asymmetrical landscape. As if on repeat, it contracted, heated up, and then, unable to push out more material, pulsated. Over thousands of years and before it became a white dwarf, the star periodically ejected mass - the visible shells of material. It closely orbits the dimmer white dwarf, helping to distribute what it’s ejected. The brighter star in both images hasn’t yet shed its layers. This white dwarf star is cloaked in thick layers of dust, which make it appear larger. The same star appears - but brighter, larger, and redder - in the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) image. In the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image, the white dwarf appears to the lower left of the bright, central star, partially hidden by a diffraction spike. Those outer layers now form the ejected shells seen in this view. This scene was created by a white dwarf star - the remnant of a star like our Sun after it shed its outer layers and stopped burning fuel through nuclear fusion. This side-by-side comparison shows observations of the Southern Ring Nebula in near-infrared light, at left, and mid-infrared light, at right, from the NASA/ESA/CSA Webb Telescope.
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