Mar 14, 2023
What a strange thing! to be alive beneath cherry blossoms.
Webb's stunning image of a super bright, massive Wolf-Rayet star calls forth the ephemeral nature of cherry blossoms. The Wolf-Rayet phase is a fleeting stage that only some stars go through, soon before they explode. Wolf-Rayet stars are in the process of casting off their outer layers, resulting in their distinctive halos of gas and dust. This Wolf-Rayet star is called WR 124. It is 30 times the mass of the Sun and has already shed 10 Suns worth of material so far.
Source: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope