Wolf-Rayet Apep (MIRI Image)

This NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared image shows four coiled shells of dust around a pair of Wolf-Rayet stars known as Apep for the first time. Previous observations by other telescopes showed only one.

Webb’s data, combined with observations from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, confirmed that the two Wolf-Rayet stars sail past one another approximately every 190 years. Over each orbit, they make a close pass for 25 years, producing and spewing amorphous carbon dust.

Webb’s new data also confirmed that there are three stars gravitationally bound to one another in this system. Holes are “sliced” into these shells by the third star, a massive supergiant.

Learn more about this result here.

[Image description: Four dust shells in Wolf-Rayet Apep expand away from three central stars that appear as a single pinpoint of light. The shells are curved, and the interior shell looks like a backward lowercase e shape.]