Lion Nebula roars to life for Webb

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has taken images of NGC 2392, nicknamed the Lion Nebula, using its NIRCam and MIRI instruments. Hubble previously imaged this planetary nebula in 2000 in visible light, showing the lion-face shape and its 'mane' of comet-shaped objects. Webb's infrared view, while broadly similar in structure, reveals features such as compact clumps of dust and a haze of ionised gas that were less distinct before.

The nebula's shape has taken several thousand years to form, and it continues to change. At the center lies the remains of a dying star—a white dwarf that looks like the lion's button nose—whose energy powers the intricate structures. The expanding bubble of ionised gas that forms the lion's face is destroying dust in its path, and astronomers are still working to understand why the swept-up gas forms complex rings and shells. The mane itself is the interior of a dust shell illuminated by the white dwarf, with the 'tufts' being compact clumps of dust that have survived the stellar radiation and protect material behind them.

Webb's imagery effectively freezes the nebula in time, but the star's death and its effects continue. NGC 2392 will keep changing as gas and dust migrate away from the stellar core, and astronomers estimate the lion will disperse in roughly 10,000 years—a short period astronomically speaking.