Astronomers Puzzled By Bizarre Rings In New Telescope Photo
The James Webb Telescope has captured an image of a star with some bizarre rings around it, baffling scientists.
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The James Webb Space Telescope has been up and running now for nearly nine months, and the images that it has gathered since then have been quite astounding. From great images of Jupiter to see stars that are the farthest away in the universe, this new telescope has been bringing some groundbreaking revelations to the world of astronomy. Well, there is now a new image that has been captured that is starting to worry astronomers. There are rings around a star that have an almost square-like shape that can’t quite be explained. Granted, it could be some sort of light reflection, but it still looks odd in nature. You can see the image below:
The star that is being observed is known as WR140, and it showcases some sort of ring-like star pattern when the image was captured. Citizen scientist Judy Schmidt was the first to release the image on Twitter, and she also spoke about this odd happening. According to Schmidt, “I think it’s just nature doing something that is simple, but when we look at it from only one viewpoint it seems impossible, at first, to understand that it is a natural phenomenon.” We did state that it could be some sort of reflection happening with the light in space and the James Webb Space Telescope capturing the image, but then again, what if there is something entirely different happening? We don’t want to run off and get our tin foil hats just yet, but space is surely a mysterious thing.
Several astronomers have observed and stated that the rings around this star are real. Ryan Lau, an astronomer at the NOIRLab confirmed that fact. He has submitted a paper on the findings and stated that the full story of what this phenomenon is, will be released soon. The WR140 star exists in a constellation known as Cygnus, and the star in question seems to dim and brighten at random intervals. However, astronomers are not quite sure if this dimming and brightening have anything to do with the rings and pattern that has been captured. This is how powerful the James Webb Space Telescope is. The telescope has been capturing detailed images of things that scientists have not yet seen. The piece of machinery costs a whopping $10 billion to make, so it stands to reason that it would be plenty capable of capturing huge details, even in deep space.
To reference our tin foil hats again, with how powerful the James Webb Space Telescope is, could this be the time in which otherworldly life is discovered? There has been an uptick in the seriousness of government agencies taking the threat of UAPs a bit more seriously. UAPs is an acronym that stands for unidentified aerial phenomena, which has replaced the UFO designation.
The James Webb Space Telescope has been capturing amazing images for the past few months, and it seems that we are going to be discovering a ton more about space than we initially knew. Well, the public will be told by the science community what we are looking at. We have no idea what is out there, but we are quite sure that alien life might be the next big discovery.
