NASA telescope captures dying star in 'rare and fleeting' phase before going supernova

The telescope captured the rare and fleeting phase of Wolf-Rayet 124 on the cusp of death. Credit: NASA/AP

NASA's Webb Space Telescope has captured the rare and fleeting phase of a star on the cusp of death.

The US space agency released the picture of the glittering star on Tuesday at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas.

The "exciting" observation was among the first made by Webb following its launch in late 2021.

Its infrared eyes observed all the gas and dust flung into space by a huge, hot star 15,000 light-years away. A light-year is about 5.8 trillion miles.

Shimmering in purple like a cherry blossom, the cast-off material once comprised the star's outer layer.

The Hubble Space Telescope snapped a shot of the same transitioning star a few decades ago - but it had appeared more like a fireball without the delicate details.

Such a transformation occurs only with some stars and normally is the last step before they explode, going supernova, according to scientists.

A supernova is the biggest explosion that humans have ever seen, say NASA. Each blast is the extremely bright, super-powerful explosion of a star.

"This rare phase is as fleeting as the cherry blossom it resembles. Luckily, Webb can study its 'petals' of dust in detail," NASA wrote on Twitter.

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“We’ve never seen it like that before. It’s really exciting,” said Macarena Garcia Marin, a European Space Agency scientist who is part of the project.

This star - in the constellation Sagittarius, officially known as WR 124 - is 30 times as massive as our sun and already has shed enough material to account for 10 suns, according to NASA.

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