NASA's Webb Telescope Captures Impending Supernova

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope captured the rare sight of a Wolf-Rayet star, WR 124, in unprecedented detail. The star is 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius and is in the process of casting off its outer layers, resulting in its characteristic halo of gas and dust. The star sheds 10 Suns' worth of material, and as the ejected gas moves away from the star and cools, cosmic dust forms and glows in the infrared light detectable by Webb. The origin of cosmic dust that can survive a supernova blast and contribute to the universe's overall "dust budget" is of great interest to astronomers for multiple reasons.