NASA's James Webb captures 'sharpest' images yet of Horsehead Nebula

• One new pic shows cold hydrogen molecules shift to energized hydrogen ions
• READ MORE: European Space Agency drops first pics from ‘dark matter’ hunter

NASA’s high definition, ‘heat vision’-focused James Webb Space Telescope has just captured the most detailed images yet of the Horsehead Nebula’s billowing ‘mane.’

For more than a century, astronomers have marveled over the iconic nebula — a dense and distant cloud of gaseous particles that serves as a nursery for new stars.

‘These observations show the top of the “horse’s mane” or edge of this iconic nebula,’ a NASA spokesperson said, ‘capturing the region’s complexity with unprecedented spatial resolution.’

One of the new infra-red images from the James Webb telescope captures, in a crisp division of color, the region where a gas of cold hydrogen molecules (blue) shifts into energized, ‘ionized’ hydrogen atoms (red).

The second image draws in mid-infrared light in rich detail, as this heat was emitted from dusty quartz-like silicate particles and ‘soot-like’ hydrocarbon molecules, which make up the deep space clouds of the Horsehead Nebula’s mane.

One new infra-red image from the James Webb telescope captures, in a crisp division of color, the region where cold hydrogen molecules (blue) shift to energized, hydrogen atoms (red)

A second image (above) draws in mid-infrared light in rich detail, as the light was emitted from the dusty quartz-like silicate particles and ‘soot-like’ hydrocarbons that make up the nebula’s horse-like mane. This ‘mane’ on the nebula’s chess knight silhouette is near 0.8 light-years long

According to NASA, the nebula is what astrophysicists call a ‘photodissociation region, or PDR’ in which ultraviolet (UV) light from young and massive stars creates a bubble of reactively neutral, warm gas and dust, enveloped by more ionized gases.

‘As UV light evaporates the dust cloud, dust particles are swept out away from the cloud, carried with the heated gas,’ NASA said in a statement on the new pics.

‘Webb has detected a network of thin features tracing this movement,’ they added.

‘The observations have also allowed astronomers to investigate how the dust blocks and emits light, and to better understand the multidimensional shape of the nebula.’

Ever since a Scottish astronomer first discovered its chess knight silhouette in 1888, the iconic Horsehead Nebula has graced astronomy textbooks, often bathed in UV radiation from the very bright star, Sigma Orionis, visible above it.

Ever since a Scottish astronomer first discovered it in 1888, the iconic Horsehead Nebula (above) has graced astronomy books, often bathed in UV radiation from the very bright star, Sigma Orionis, above it. Above, a 2023 image of the nebula taken by the space probe Euclid

The nebula is a favorite target for both professional and amateur astronomers, including the East Ayrshire native Bryan Shaw, who has gained fame for capturing stunning images of nebulas and star clusters from his garden in the UK.

Nebulas are often named based on what scientists perceive as similarities with Earth-based objects or characters, including a cat’s paw, a tarantula and a veil.

Astronomers have also perceived a black widow spider, a Halloween lantern, a snake, an exposed human brain, and the Starship Enterprise, among other things.

READ MORE: Hubble Space Telescope’s best images – from the Pillars of Creation to the iconic Large Magellanic Cloud

Affectionately known as ‘our eye on the Universe’, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched on April 24, 1990, via the space shuttle Discovery from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida

NASA’s $10 billion James Webb telescope, a partnership with European and Canadian space agencies, has been described as a ‘time machine’ that could help unravel the secrets of our universe.

The telescope was built to look back to the first galaxies born in the early universe more than 13.5 billion years ago, to observe the sources of stars, exoplanets, and even the moons and planets of our own solar system.

The James Webb Telescope and most of its instruments have an operating temperature of roughly 40 Kelvin – about minus 387 Fahrenheit (minus 233 Celsius).

It is the world’s biggest and most powerful orbital space telescope, capable of peering back 100-200 million years after the Big Bang.

The orbiting infrared observatory is designed to be about 100 times more powerful than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA likes to think of James Webb as a successor to Hubble rather than a replacement, as the two will work in tandem for the early years of its lifecycle.

Hubble was launched back on April 24, 1990, via the space shuttle Discovery from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

Ever since it has circled the Earth at a speed of about 17,000mph (27,300kph) in low Earth orbit at about 340 miles in altitude.

Read more