Two views of the gas in the Southern Ring Nebula (NIRCam and MIRI Composite Images)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope offers dramatically different views of the Southern Ring Nebula. Each image combines near- and mid-infrared light from three filters. At left, Webb’s image of the Southern Ring Nebula highlights the very hot gas that surrounds the two central stars. At right, Webb’s image traces the star’s scattered molecular outflows that have reached farther into the cosmos. In the image at left, blue and green were assigned to Webb’s near-infrared data taken in 1.87 and 4.05 microns (F187N and F405N), and red was assigned to Webb’s mid-infrared data taken in 18 microns (F1800W). In the image at right, blue and green were assigned to Webb’s near-infrared data taken in 2.12 and 4.7 microns (F212N and F470N), and red was assigned to Webb’s mid-infrared data taken in 7.7 microns (F770W).