Astronomers studying a glowing “cosmic butterfly” have uncovered new clues about how worlds like Earth may have first formed.
Using the powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), researchers looked deep into the Butterfly Nebula, also known as NGC 6302, and found vital information about the dust that eventually builds planets.
The Butterfly Nebula lies about 3,400 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius.
At its center sits one of the hottest stars known in a planetary nebula, burning at around 220,000 Kelvin.
This dying star is hidden by a thick band of dusty gas shaped like a doughnut, known as a torus. The star’s extreme heat and winds push material outward, sculpting the butterfly-like wings we see in space.
For scientists, the real treasure is the dust. Cosmic dust is made up of tiny mineral and carbon-based particles, sometimes linked to the origins of life.
Most of it is shapeless, like soot, but some crystallizes into tiny gemstone-like structures.
Thanks to Webb’s sharp eyes, researchers discovered both types of dust inside the nebula: calm regions where crystals slowly formed, and violent zones where more chaotic particles appeared.
The torus itself turned out to be rich in crystalline silicates, such as quartz. The grains were surprisingly large—about a millionth of a meter—showing they had been growing for a long time.
This matters because such dust is thought to be the raw material that clumps together to form rocky planets like Earth.
The team also identified nearly 200 spectral fingerprints of different atoms and molecules. These revealed how elements like iron and nickel stream outward in jets from the central star. Even more intriguing, they found evidence of carbon molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
These ring-shaped molecules, also found in smoke or car exhaust on Earth, are thought to play a role in the chemistry of life. Detecting them in an oxygen-rich nebula like this one is a first.
Planetary nebulae like the Butterfly are formed when Sun-like stars shed their outer layers near the end of their lives.
Although the phase lasts only about 20,000 years—a blink in cosmic time—it creates some of the most spectacular sights in the sky.
By combining Webb’s infrared images with radio observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile, astronomers were able to map the nebula in greater detail than ever before. They even managed to locate the nebula’s central star, long hidden behind its dusty veil.
These discoveries provide an exciting step forward in understanding how the building blocks of planets, and perhaps life itself, come together in the universe.
Source: KSR.
