Located roughly 7,600 light-years away, NGC 3324 was first catalogued by James Dunlop in 1826. 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.

An unusual “arch” appears, looking like a bent-over cylinder.

A “blow-out” erupts at the top-centre of the ridge, spewing gas and dust into the interstellar medium.

Protostellar jets and outflows, which appear in gold, shoot from dust-enshrouded, nascent stars.

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

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

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 intense, ultraviolet radiation.

Several prominent features in this image are described below. NIRCam – with its crisp resolution and unparalleled sensitivity – unveils hundreds of previously hidden stars, and even numerous background galaxies.

The high-energy radiation from these stars is sculpting the nebula’s wall by slowly eroding it 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. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera ( NIRCam) on the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals previously obscured areas of star birth.Ĭalled the Cosmic Cliffs, the region is actually the edge of a gigantic, gaseous cavity within NGC 3324, roughly 7,600 light-years away.

What looks much like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula.

Carina nebula 4k