Cat's Paw Nebula, Jigsaw Puzzle

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Cat's Paw Nebula:

To celebrate the third year of highly productive science from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers used the telescope to delve beyond the surface of the Cat's Paw Nebula (NGC 6334), a massive, local star-forming region. This area is of great interest to scientists, having been the subject of previous studies by NASA's Hubble and retired Spitzer space telescopes, as they seek to understand the multiple steps required for a turbulent molecular cloud to transition into stars.

With its near-infrared capabilities and sharp resolution, the telescope "clawed" back a portion of a singular "toe bean," revealing a subset of mini-toe-bean-reminiscent structures composed of gas, dust, and young stars.

Webb's view reveals a chaotic scene still in development: massive young stars are carving away at nearby gas and dust, while their bright starlight produces a bright nebulous glow, represented in blue. This is only a chapter in the region's larger story. The disruptive young stars, with their relatively short lifespans and luminosity, will eventually quench the local star formation process.

Constellation:            Scorpius

Dimensions:              Image is 5.8 arcmin across (about 9.3 light-years)

Distance:                   5,500 light-years

Exposure Dates:       6 September 2024

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI