In a rare capture, NASA’s James Webb telescope clicks star on cusp of death

A star's rare and fleeting phase on the cusp of death was captured by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

NASA on Tuesday released images of WR 124, a rare Wolf-Rayet star present in the constellation Sagittarius, at a distance of 15,000 light-years from Earth.

"Massive stars race through their life cycles, and only some of them go through a brief Wolf-Rayet phase before going supernova, making Webb's detailed observations of this rare phase valuable to astronomers," wrote NASA officials.

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The telescope's infrared eyes captured the gas and dust flung into space by the hot star.

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"Wolf-Rayet stars are in the process of casting off their outer layers, resulting in their characteristic halos of gas and dust," agency officials stated.

"Dust is integral to the workings of the universe: It shelters forming stars, gathers together to help form planets, and serves as a platform for molecules to form and clump together — including the building blocks of life on Earth," stated NASA.

"Despite the many essential roles that dust plays, there is still more dust in the universe than astronomers' current dust-formation theories can explain,” it added.

A shot of the same transitioning star was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope a few decades ago, but in that image, it appeared like a fireball.

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According to scientists, such transformation takes place only with some stars and is generally the last stage before they explode, going supernova.

“We’ve never seen it like that before. It’s really exciting,” stated Macarena Garcia Marin, a European Space Agency scientist.

This star's constellation Sagittarius, which is officially called WR 124, is 30 times bigger than our sun and has shed enough material already to account for 10 suns, as per NASA.

(With inputs from agencies)

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