The James Webb Space Telescope recently captured unique images of an unusual double-rayt-rayet 140 star system, located approximately 5,000 light years away in our galaxy. The system is surrounded by concentric rings of dust, resembling a cosmic woodcut. These images have provided scientists with valuable insights into the distribution of elements like carbon in the universe.
A group of astronomers has published the results of this image research and presented their conclusions at the 245th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in National Harbor, Maryland. According to Emma Lib from the University of Denver, the dust shells in the system expand at a constant speed, with noticeable structural changes occurring at incredibly short intervals.
Stars like Wolf-Rayet are considered future supernovae, larger than the sun but rapidly losing mass as they near the end of their life cycle. In the WR 140 system, one of the stars belongs to the Wolf-Rayet category and is about 10 times more massive than our sun.
This is not the first time the James Webb telescope has observed such objects. In 2023, it captured impressive images of the WR 124 star, located 15,000 light years from Earth and exceeding the sun’s mass by 30 times. The gas and dust streams around WR 124 move at speeds exceeding 1,50,000 kilometers per hour.
Over the past 130 years, WR 140 has ejected more than 17 dust shells into space, with the oldest ones now undetectable. The dust around WR 140 moves at a much higher speed compared to WR 124, at 2600 km/s.
The formation of dust in the system occurs roughly every eight years, corresponding to a complete revolution of the stars around each other. During these close encounters, star winds collide, compressing matter and forming carbon-rich clouds. This process lasts several months per orbital period, with each ring in the images representing one such period.
The James Webb telescope captured two images of the system in the mid-infrared range in July 2022 and September 2023. A comparison of these images revealed significant expansion of the dust shell within 14 months. Ryan Lau from NSF’s Noirlab emphasized the critical role of observations in this spectrum for analyzing cold carbon dust. In visible light and near-infrared, only the closest shell to the star is visible.
The ultimate fate of stars like Wolf-Rayet in the system remains unknown. They may either evolve into supernovae or collapse into black holes. If a black hole forms, the dust shells will remain intact, whereas a supernova explosion could potentially obliterate