The Webb Space Telescope Studies the "Cosmic Cliffs" in NGC 3324

The seemingly three-dimensional “Cosmic Cliffs” showcases Webb’s capabilities to peer through obscuring dust and shed new light on how stars form. Webb reveals emerging stellar nurseries and individual stars that are completely hidden in visible-light pictures. This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” is actually the edge of a nearby stellar nursery called NGC 3324 at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula.

So-called mountains — some towering about 7 light-years high — are speckled with glittering, young stars imaged in infrared light. A cavernous area has been carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from extremely massive, hot, young stars located above the area shown in this image. The blistering, ultraviolet radiation from these stars is sculpting the nebula’s wall by slowly eroding it away. Dramatic pillars rise above the glowing wall of gas, resisting this radiation. The “steam” that appears to rise from the celestial “mountains” is actually hot, ionized gas and hot dust streaming away from the nebula due to the relentless radiation.

Objects in the earliest, rapid phases of star formation are difficult to capture, but Webb’s extreme sensitivity, spatial resolution and imaging capability can chronicle these elusive events.

Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope combined the capabilities of the telescope’s two cameras to create a never-before-seen view of a star-forming region in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), this combined image reveals previously invisible areas of star birth.

What looks much like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region known as NGC 3324. Called the Cosmic Cliffs, this rim of a gigantic, gaseous cavity is roughly 7,600 light-years away.

The cavernous area has been carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from extremely massive, hot, young stars located in the center of the bubble, above the area shown in this image. The high-energy radiation from these stars is sculpting the nebula’s wall by slowly eroding it away.

NIRCam – with its crisp resolution and unparalleled sensitivity – unveils hundreds of previously hidden stars, and even numerous background galaxies. In MIRI’s view, young stars and their dusty, planet-forming disks shine brightly in the mid-infrared, appearing pink and red. MIRI reveals structures that are embedded in the dust and uncovers the stellar sources of massive jets and outflows. With MIRI, the hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds on the surface of the ridges glow, giving the appearance of jagged rocks.

Several prominent features in this image are described below.

- The faint “steam” that appears to rise from the celestial “mountains” is actually hot, ionized gas and hot dust streaming away from the nebula due to intense, ultraviolet radiation.

- Peaks and pillars rise above the glowing wall of gas, resisting the blistering ultraviolet radiation from the young stars.

- Bubbles and cavities are being blown by the intense radiation and stellar winds of newborn stars.

- Protostellar jets and outflows, which appear in gold, shoot from dust-enshrouded, nascent stars. MIRI uncovers the young, stellar sources producing these features. For example, a feature at left that looks like a comet with NIRCam is revealed with MIRI to be one cone of an outflow from a dust-enshrouded, newborn star.

- A “blow-out” erupts at the top-center of the ridge, spewing material into the interstellar medium. MIRI sees through the dust to unveil the star responsible for this phenomenon.

- An unusual “arch,” looking like a bent-over cylinder, appears in all wavelengths shown here.

This period of very early star formation is difficult to capture because, for an individual star, it lasts only about 50,000 to 100,000 years – but Webb’s extreme sensitivity and exquisite spatial resolution have chronicled this rare event.

Dozens of previously hidden jets and outflows from young stars are revealed in this new image of the Cosmic Cliffs from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). The Cosmic Cliffs, a region at the edge of a gigantic, gaseous cavity within NGC 3324, has long intrigued astronomers as a hotbed for star formation.

Many details of star formation in NGC 3324 remain hidden at visible-light wavelengths. Webb is perfectly primed to tease out these long-sought-after details since it can detect jets and outflows seen only in the infrared at high resolution.

This image separates out several wavelengths of light from the iconic First Image revealed on July 12, 2022 which highlight molecular hydrogen, a vital ingredient for star formation. Insets on the right-hand side highlight three regions of the Cosmic Cliffs with particularly active molecular hydrogen outflows.

NGC 3372: Eta Carinae Nebula Hubble vs. Webb Space Telescope. You can see the vast improvement in resolution and clarity over images of the same regions collected by the Hubble Space Telescope, and begin to understand all the new discoveries and science now possible.