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7500광년 밖 ‘우주 보물상자’ 활짝...먼지구름 속 별 ‘총총’ [놀라운 우주]

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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has uncovered a remarkable scene hidden within a dust cloud in our galaxy, using its infrared camera. This image, released six days ago, depicts the Carina Nebula, located 7,500 light-years away from Earth. The nebula is home to the largest stars in our galaxy, as well as millions of primitive stars.

Spanning over 260 light-years, the Carina Nebula is filled with celestial bodies, including the "treasure chest" celestial object, which has been dubbed a "treasure chest" by the European Space Agency. This object, resembling an open treasure chest, is a type of meteor shower nebula, composed of gas and dust clouds with a golden sheen rather than a young and hot star population.

According to NASA, this treasure chest contains around 70 stars, with the largest estimated to be 19 times the mass of our Sun, known as an 'O-type star.'

Formed approximately 1.3 million years ago, these stars were once obscured by thick dust clouds. However, JWST's powerful infrared capabilities have finally revealed their true form. The treasure chest's unique shape is attributed to the massive star Eta Carinae, located 39 light-years away in the northern part of the nebula. This star system, the brightest and most massive in the Carina Nebula, is a binary star system with two massive stars that emit hundreds of times more light than our Sun.

The stellar winds and radiation from this system shape the nebula's form and play a crucial role in the birth of new stars.

The debate among astronomers is whether the nebula's meteor shower shape formed first, or if the stars formed first, subsequently influencing the nebula's density. The most plausible scenario suggests that the stars were formed in a larger gas cloud before the nebula took shape, leading to the formation of the treasure chest nebula as denser gas particles remained while less dense gases were carried away.

Written by urgent.news from Hankyoreh's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.

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