Cat's Paw Nebula, Kids' Puzzle

Cat’s Paw Nebula

To celebrate NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s third year of highly productive science, astronomers used the telescope to scratch 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 subject to previous study 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 to 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 is producing 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