JWST captures incredible image of WR124 going supernova

The James Webb space telescope was launched on Christmas day 2021, set to go “back to the edge of time itself” 1.5 million km away at the lagrarian point L2- a place inside Earth’s orbit which allows for objects such as space telescopes to remain in a stable orbit, without any added energy, around Earth’s orbit. This point has the best conditions for it to operate at, and perfect for its sundhield to block out light and heat from the sun. Each lagrarian point is relative to Earth as it orbits the sun. It is also coated in a thin layer of gold to improve the refration of infra-red light, and, as a result, it has been able to take some incredible images- all have which been enhanced with a high resolution due to its 6.5m aperture.

Now, you might be wondering what a W-R is. It is a type of star called a Wolf-Rayet star, and any star which is classified by this type has a ‘W’ in its spectral type. This W means that these stars are blue, and are as hot as the O-type stars, but what seperates them is the wolf-rayet stars have stronger emission lines on the electromagnetic spectrum. Wolf-Rayet stars don’t actually fuse hydrogen- which is what our sun does, it fuses helium and other heavy elements to eventually form iron. Past this point, nothing more can fuse, resulting in a stellar explosion called a supernova.

Both W and O-type stars will most likely end in a supernova. As mentioned previously, this occurs when stars about 8x the mass of our sun reaches the end of its life. One supernova can outshine entire galaxies, and radiate more energy than our sun will in its lifetime.

Not all stars end in a supernova however, it is only because these stars are absolutely massive that they hold enough energy and mass to do this. A star such as our sun, for example, has a spectral type of G2 (the 2 symbolises the luminosity) and will not end in a supernova. Like most stars, it will likely die when it runs out of hydrogen to fuse , expands to a red giant, and gradually looses gas and dust from the outer layers, leaving just a core with no fusion occuring. This is known as a white dwarf. For anybody doing GCSE physics, you may have been taught about black dwarfs, and wonder how this forms from a white dwarf. Well, from what astronomers know currently, black dwarfs don’t actually exist at the moment. This is because the white dwarfs have to cool first, which is a long process and the 13.5 billion year old universe is simply too young.

This image has captured WR124 going supernova. Astronomers seem to be very enthusiastic about this, just because of how rare supernovas are- on average, they happen approximately once a centry within our galaxy, proving how rare of an event these are and how amazing it really is to see it on a picture.

After a supernova has occured, masses of gas and dust is left behind. This will go on to form nebulae which can be sites of future star formation.