As a last farewell, the hot core now ionizes, or heats up, this expelled gas, and the nebula responds with colorful emission of light. Only a few thousand years ago, that star was still a red giant that was shedding most of its mass. They were named for their fuzzy, planet-like appearance through small telescopes. “Planetary nebulae were once thought to be simple, round objects with a single dying star at the center. Download the full-resolution version from the Space Telescope Science Institute. The main shell contains a thin ring of enhanced emission from carbon-based molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). In contrast, the inner region shows very hot gas. There are some 20,000 dense globules in the nebula, which are rich in molecular hydrogen. This new image from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) shows intricate details of the filament structure of the inner ring. Formed by a star throwing off its outer layers as it runs out of fuel, the Ring Nebula is an archetypal planetary nebula. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has observed the well-known Ring Nebula in unprecedented detail. Roger Wesson from Cardiff University tells us more about this phase of a Sun-like star’s stellar lifecycle and how Webb observations have given him and his colleagues valuable insights into the formation and evolution of these objects, hinting at a key role for binary companions. Much like the Southern Ring Nebula, one of Webb’s first images, the Ring Nebula displays intricate structures of the final stages of a dying star. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope obtained images of the Ring Nebula, one of the best-known examples of a planetary nebula. So I think that reason is a really good one for blind and low vision kids today to grow up with this as normal, I think it’s incredibly valuable.Editor’s Note: This post highlights data from Webb science in progress, which has not yet been through the peer-review process. “I wonder if I was a child now and came across things like sonification and image descriptions and astronomical stuff, would a career in STEM make more sense? Would it be more appealing? And I think the answer to that is yes. Malec is excited about the future of space exploration and is hopeful for the future of accessible content in the science field. She now works regularly with Russo, Santaguida and NASA to help best translate the images from Webb for the benefit of people living with visual impairments. So I sometimes wonder if it’s what sighted people experience looking up at the night sky,” Malec says. “When I experienced the sonification for the first time, I felt it in a way that was not intellectual it was sensory and visceral. “I had never imagined experiencing astronomy in that way,” she tells The New Reality.Ĭhristine Malec, is a member of the visually impaired community, helping NASA make Webb images more accessible. “The whole goal is to communicate those interesting features in the image, through sound,” Russo says.Ĭhristine Malec, a member of the visually impaired community in Toronto and an arts and culture consultant, says the sonifications by Russo and Santaguida allow her to conceptualize the images from the telescope, even though she is not able to see them. The sonifications are providing those living with visual impairments the chance to experience new insights into what’s out there. Their sonifications of the Webb images are now allowing people to see - and hear - the universe. “People seem to have an intuition that stars would make kind of a bell or chime sound.” “Where we have a little more musical input, we have to decide, for instance, which musical instrument is going to be triggered by stars,” he adds. Russo says they always try to be as scientifically accurate as possible. Other times they need to get a bit more creative to figure out how best to represent something in the image. They’re taking the spectacular images DePasquale and Pagan have created and putting them through a software system that Russo designed.Īccording to Russo sometimes the sound from the data can be a pleasant surprise. Now Russo and Santaguida are working on the latest imagery from the James Webb telescope. So it’s important when we do sonification to present it for exactly what it is: that it’s data converted into sound.” “Some outlets would say it’s an actual recorded sound of a black hole, as if you had a microphone in space, which we know would not work for several reasons. And we were able to see the waves in the image, which means we can extract them and re-synthesize a sound,” Russo says. “There’s a real soundwave detected in space in a galaxy cluster. Some of the sonifications have been met with skepticism from the public, like when they did the sound for a black hole. Andrew Santaguida, musician, working with Russo to sonify Webb images.
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