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WR 124 (MIRI Image)

A large, bright star shines from the center with smaller stars scattered throughout the image. A clumpy cloud of material surrounds the central star, with more material above and below than on the sides, in some places allowing background stars to peek through. The cloud material is yellow closer to the star, and turns purple at its outer edges.

Wolf-Rayet stars are known to be efficient dust producers, and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows this to great effect. Cooler cosmic dust glows at the longer mid-infrared wavelengths, displaying the structure of WR 124’s nebula. The 10 light-years-wide nebula is made of material cast off from the aging star in random ejections, and from dust produced in the ensuing turbulence. This brilliant stage of mass loss precedes the star’s eventual supernova, when nuclear fusion in its core stops and the pressure of gravity causes it to collapse in on itself and then explode. As MIRI demonstrates here, Webb will help astronomers to explore questions that were previously only left to theory – about how much dust stars like this create before exploding in a supernova, and how much of that dust is large enough to survive the blast and go on to serve as building blocks of future stars, planets, and complex molecules.  

In this image red is assigned to wavelengths of 12.8 and 18 microns (F1280W, F1800W), green to 11.3 microns (F1130W), and blue to 7.7 microns (F770W).

About the Object

  • R.A. Position
    R.A. PositionRight ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position.
    19:11:30.88
  • Dec. Position
    Dec. PositionDeclination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position.
    +16:51:38.20
  • Constellation
    ConstellationOne of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears.
    Sagitta
  • Distance
    DistanceThe physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs.
    15,000 light-years

About the Data

  • Data Description
    Data DescriptionProposal: A description of the observations, their scientific justification, and the links to the data available in the science archive.
    Science Team: The astronomers who planned the observations and analyzed the data. "PI" refers to the Principal Investigator.

    This image was created with Webb data from proposal 2730. It is part of Webb Early Release Observations.

    The Early Release Observations and associated materials were developed, executed, and compiled by the ERO production team:

    Jaclyn Barrientes, Claire Blome, Hannah Braun, Matthew Brown, Margaret Carruthers, Dan Coe, Joseph DePasquale, Nestor Espinoza, Macarena Garcia Marin, Karl Gordon, Alaina Henry, Leah Hustak, Andi James, Ann Jenkins, Anton Koekemoer, Stephanie LaMassa, David Law, Alexandra Lockwood, Amaya Moro-Martin, Susan Mullally, Alyssa Pagan, Dani Player, Klaus Pontoppidan, Charles Proffitt, Christine Pulliam, Leah Ramsay, Swara Ravindranath, Neill Reid, Massimo Robberto, Elena Sabbi, Leonardo Ubeda. 

    The EROs were also made possible by the foundational efforts and support from the JWST instruments, STScI planning and scheduling, Data Management teams, and Office of Public Outreach.

  • Instrument
    InstrumentThe science instrument used to produce the data.
    MIRI
  • Exposure Dates
    Exposure DatesThe date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time.
    10 June 2022
  • Filters
    FiltersThe camera filters that were used in the science observations.
    F770W; F1130W; F1280W; F1800
  • Object Name
    Object NameA name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.
    WR 124
  • Object Description
    Object DescriptionThe type of astronomical object.
    Wolf-Rayet Star
  • Release Date
    March 14, 2023
  • Science Release
    NASA’s Webb Telescope Captures Rarely Seen Prelude to Supernova
    Read the release
  • Credit
    Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team

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A large, bright star shines from the center with smaller stars scattered throughout the image. A clumpy cloud of material surrounds the central star, with more material above and below than on the sides, in some places allowing background stars to peek through. The cloud material is yellow closer to the star, and turns purple at its outer edges.
Color Info
Color InfoA brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented.

These images are a composite of separate exposures acquired by the James Webb Space Telescope using the MIRI instrument. Several filters were used broad wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are:   Red: F1280W + F1800W, Green: F1130W, Blue: F770W

Related Images & Videos

A large, bright star shines from the center with smaller stars scattered throughout the image. A clumpy cloud of material surrounds the central star, with more material above and below than on the sides, in some places allowing background stars to peek through. The cloud material is yellow closer to the star, and turns purple at its outer edges.

WR 124 (NIRCam and MIRI Composite Image)

The luminous, hot star Wolf-Rayet 124 (WR 124) is prominent at the center of the James Webb Space Telescope’s composite image combining near-infrared and mid-infrared wavelengths of light. The star displays the characteristic diffraction spikes of Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera...

At the bottom left are compass arrows indicating the orientation of the image on the sky. The north arrow points in the one o’clock direction. The east arrow points toward 10 o’clock. At the lower right is a scale bar labeled 2 light-years. The length of the scale bar is about one-fifth the total width of the image. Below the image is a color key showing which filters were used to create the image and which visible-light color is assigned to each filter. The top row lists the NIRCam filters, with F090W and F150W in blue text, F210M and F335M in green text, and F444W, F470N in red text. Below the MIRI filters are listed, with F770W in blue text, F1130W in green text, and F1280W and F1800W in red text. Link at end of caption leads to a full description of the image.

WR 124 (NIRCam and MIRI Compass Image)

This composite image of star WR 124 captured by the James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera and Mid-Infrared Instrument includes arrows, scale bar, and color key for reference. The north and east compass arrows show the orientation of the image on the sky. Note that...

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Details

Last Updated
Aug 28, 2025
Contact
Media

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

Image Credit

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team

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