A new image from the James Webb Telescope shows 17 concentric dust rings radiating from
The Wolf-Rayet star is a type of star for whichcharacterized by very high temperatures and luminosities. They have at least 25 times the mass of the Sun and tend to be near the end of their lives, contain little hydrogen but are rich in helium, and emit strong stellar winds. Most often, these types of stars are found in binary systems.
Image of star WR 140. Image: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/JPL-Caltech
The WR 140 system is located 5,000 light years away.from the earth. According to scientists, this stellar pair lost more than half of its original mass during the formation of a stellar wind. Once every eight years, the stars of the pair approach each other, and their stellar winds (flows of gas that they blow into space), meeting, compress the gas and form a dust ring.
Using spectroscopy data from one of the instrumentsspace telescope, scientists have shown that dust rings contain a large number of carbon-rich molecules. In addition, the researchers found that dust particles can persist in the hostile environment between stars, forming material for future stars and planets.
The transformation of gas into dust is possible only whencertain conditions, scientists explain. Hydrogen, the lightest and most abundant element in stars and stellar wind, cannot form dust on its own. But because Wolf-Rayet stars lose so much mass, they also throw out more complex elements that are usually found deep inside a star, including carbon. Heavy elements in the wind cool as they travel into space and then contract where the winds from both stars meet.
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