Lion Nebula Roars to Life With NASA’s Webb

NASA Science reports that the James Webb Space Telescope has captured striking new images of NGC 2392, the Lion Nebula, using infrared-sensing instruments. The nebula takes its name from its distinctive lion-shaped structure—a face framed by a dramatic mane of dust and gas radiating outward into space. At the center sits a white dwarf, the hot, dense remnant of a dying star whose intense radiation continuously sculpts and transforms the surrounding material. Webb's infrared cameras reveal far more detail than Hubble's earlier visible-light observations, showing compact dust clumps and wisps of ionized gas that optical telescopes cannot see. Astronomers estimate the nebula will gradually disperse over the next ten thousand years—a brief chapter in cosmic time.

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