File:"Cosmic Cliffs" in the Carina Nebula (NIRCam Compass Image) (2022-031).png

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Description	English: Image of the Carina Nebula (NGC 3324) captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), with compass arrows, scale bar, and color key for reference. The north and east compass arrows show the orientation of the image on the sky. Note that the relationship between north and east on the sky (as seen from below) is flipped relative to direction arrows on a map of the ground (as seen from above). The scale bar is labeled in light-years, which is the distance that light travels in one Earth-year. (It takes 2 years for light to travel a distance equal to the length of the scale bar.) One light-year is equal to about 5.88 trillion miles or 9.46 trillion kilometers. The field of view shown in this image is approximately 16 light-years across. This image shows invisible near-infrared wavelengths of light that have been translated into visible-light colors. The color key shows which NIRCam filters were used when collecting the light. The color of each filter name is the visible light color used to represent the infrared light that passes through that filter. Click here for a full description of the image.
Date	12 July 2022, 15:22:00 (upload date)
Source	"Cosmic Cliffs" in the Carina Nebula (NIRCam Compass Image)
Author	IMAGE: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
Other versions	TIFF version

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This file is in the public domain because it was created by NASA, ESA and CSA. NASA Webb material is copyright-free and may be freely used as in the public domain without fee, on the condition that only NASA, STScI, and/or ESA/CSA is credited as the source of the material. This license does not apply if source material from other organizations is in use.
The material was created for NASA by Space Telescope Science Institute under Contract NAS5-03127. Copyright statement at webbtelescope.org. For material created by the European Space Agency on the esawebb.org site, use the {{ESA-Webb}} tag.

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Author	Space Telescope Science Institute Office of Public Outreach
Image title	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. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals previously obscured areas of star birth.Called the Cosmic Cliffs, the region is actually the edge of a gigantic, gaseous cavity within NGC 3324, roughly 7,600 light-years 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. The high-energy radiation from these stars is sculpting the nebula’s wall by slowly eroding it away.NIRCam– with its crisp resolution and unparalleled sensitivity – unveils hundreds of previously hidden stars, and even numerous background galaxies. Several prominent features in this image are described below.•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.•Dramatic pillars rise above the glowing wall of gas, resisting the blistering ultraviolet radiation from the young stars.•Bubbles and cavities are being blown by the intense radiation and stellar winds of newborn stars.•Protostellar jets and outflows, which appear in gold, shoot from dust-enshrouded, nascent stars.•A“blow-out” erupts at the top-center of the ridge, spewing gas and dust into the interstellar medium.•An unusual“arch” appears, looking like a bent-over cylinder.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.Located roughly 7,600 light-years away, NGC 3324 was first catalogued by James Dunlop in 1826. Visible from the Southern Hemisphere, it is located at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372), which resides in the constellation Carina. The Carina Nebula is home to the Keyhole Nebula and the active, unstable supergiant star called Eta Carinae.NIRCam was built by a team at the University of Arizona and Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center.
Copyright holder	Public
Short title	NIRCam Compass Image of the“Cosmic Cliffs” in Carina
Credit/Provider	NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team
Source	STScI
Usage terms	https://www.stsci.edu/copyright
Date and time of data generation	12 July 2022
Color space	sRGB
Exif version	2.31
Image width	14,575 px
Image height	11,227 px
Bits per component	8 8 8
Height	11,227 px
Width	14,575 px
Pixel composition	RGB
Number of components	3
Horizontal resolution	300 dpi
Vertical resolution	300 dpi
Contact information	outreach@stsci.edu https://www.stsci.edu/ 3700 San Martin Drive Baltimore, MD, 21218 USA 410-338-4444
Keywords	NGC 3324 Carina Nebula
Date and time of digitizing	10:26, 6 December 2021
Software used	Adobe Photoshop 23.3 (Macintosh)
Date metadata was last modified	09:24, 21 July 2022
File change date and time	15:39, 10 July 2022
Unique ID of original document	xmp.did:bd4625a5-242f-460c-85da-488cc38cad39
Copyright status	Copyright status not set

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