James Webb telescope updates: ‘Cosmic fingerprint’ formed by two giant stars

INA – SOURCES 
 
Astronomers have captured a striking image of 17 concentric dust rings resembling a cosmic fingerprint in the latest observations from the James Webb space telescope.
 
The formation was created by the interaction of two giant stars, known collectively as the Wolf-Rayet 140 binary, more than 5,000 light years from Earth. The rings are created every eight years when the stars pass close to each other in their elongated orbit. 
 
During their close approach, the solar winds from the stars collide, causing the gas streaming from the stars to be compressed into dust.
 
“Like clockwork, WR140 puffs out a sculpted smoke ring every eight years, which is then inflated in the stellar wind like a balloon,” said Prof Peter Tuthill of the Sydney Institute for Astronomy at the University of Sydney, a study co-author. “Eight years later, as the binary returns in its orbit, another ring appears, the same as the one before, streaming out into space inside the bubble of the previous one, like a set of giant nested Russian dolls.”