The James Webb Space Telescope captured NGC 346, a star-forming region about 210,000 light years away. One of the features of the region resembles a dragon. Learn more about it in this NASA tour.
VIDEO: Danielle Kirshenblat (STScI)
MUSIC: High Street Music
SCIENCE: NASA, ESA, CSA, Olivia C. Jones (UK ATC), Guido De Marchi (ESTEC), Margaret Meixner (USRA)
IMAGE PROCESSING: Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Nolan Habel (USRA), Laura Lenkić (USRA), Laurie E. U. Chu (NASA Ames)
VIDEO: Danielle Kirshenblat (STScI)
MUSIC: High Street Music
SCIENCE: NASA, ESA, CSA, Olivia C. Jones (UK ATC), Guido De Marchi (ESTEC), Margaret Meixner (USRA)
IMAGE PROCESSING: Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Nolan Habel (USRA), Laura Lenkić (USRA), Laurie E. U. Chu (NASA Ames)
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TechTranscript
00:00NGC 346, a star cluster that lies within a nebula, is located 210,000 light-years away.
00:10It resides within the small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy close to our Milky Way.
00:15New findings from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope reveal the presence of a much more
00:20intricate network of gas and dust structures than previously discovered in the area.
00:25Within this plume of gas is cold molecular hydrogen, which provides a perfect environment
00:31for young stars to form, some of which can be seen here. These young stars generate energy that heats
00:38the gas, energizing and splitting the molecular hydrogen. This effectively carves rough ridges
00:44into the gas. This area appears to show the head of a dragon spitting out balls of hot gas. Its eye,
00:52and the balls of gas, are areas of active star formation, which will continue to change the
00:57environment around it. These wisps are more evidence of that environmental change.
01:03Winds from nearby stars are blowing away material that surrounds still-forming stars,
01:08leaving these small structures behind. Here we see curly ribbons of glowing gas
01:15that outline the cold molecular gas of the region. These many pillars of creation show
01:20how pervasive the stellar erosion is in the region. Eventually, over millions of years,
01:26the mixture of energized and dense hydrogen will give way to thousands of stars and far more of
01:32these filamentary structures.