August, an early release image from the James Webb #Space #Telescope revealed a #bizarre sight: as many as 17 #concentric #rings encircling a #binary #star #system, called #Wolf-Rayet 140. Was it a #spiral #nebula, an alien megastructure or just an optical illusion?

Nope, I don't know what this is. Some kind of spiral nebula around WR140. I'm sure we'll find out more later.

h/t to @yuvharpaz & @JWSTPhotoBot pic.twitter.com/ukenoIXrnj

— Judy Schmidt (@SpaceGeck) August 29, 2022
The answer, revealed today, is #dust. A new paper published in Nature Astronomy explains how stellar winds in this odd binary system blasts dust into near-perfect concentric circles every time the two stars come close to each other in their eccentric orbits.
https://www.universetoday.com/