A cradle of stars photographed by the Webb telescope

A cosmic mountain-like cradle of stars surrounded by gas clouds has been photographed by the James Webb Space Telescope. This region is around the star cluster Pismis 24 , 5,500 light-years away in the Lobster Nebula .

Considered one of the most interesting spots for studying the characteristics of young stars in formation, particularly very massive and bright stars, Pismis 24 was the focus of a new observation campaign by the Webb telescope, a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian space agency CSA.

At the center of the image, we see an intense point of light called Pismis 24-1 , which appears to be a gigantic single star and, until recently, was considered the most massive star known. But in recent years, it has been possible to understand that Pismis 24-1 is actually a system of at least two very close stars with an enormous mass , between 74 and 66 times that of our Sun. What the Webb telescope's infrared Nircam instrument images is only a portion of the Lobster Nebula, where a large mass of dust and gas, which appears to form a sort of mountain, is leading to the formation of thousands of very hot new stars , some with temperatures almost eight times higher than that of the Sun. This heat is driving streams of ionized gas to form ridges and spires , the largest of which extend for about 5.4 light-years, about 200 times the size of our Solar System. In this image, cyan indicates hot or ionized hydrogen gas being heated by massive young stars, while smoke-like dust molecules are represented in orange. Red indicates the coldest and densest molecular hydrogen, with black, the densest gas, from which no light emerges.