Pan of the Southern Ring Nebula (MIRI Image)

This video features Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) image of the Southern Ring Nebula.

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Telescope has revealed the cloak of dust around the second star, shown at left in red, at the centre of the Southern Ring Nebula for the first time. It is a hot, dense white dwarf star.

This MIRI image offers an incredible amount of detail, including a cache of distant galaxies in the background. Most of the multi-coloured points of light are galaxies, not stars. Tiny triangles mark the circular edges of stars, including a blue one within the nebula’s red bottom-most edges, while galaxies look like misshapen circles, straight lines, and spirals.