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Nested dust shells around the Wolf–Rayet binary WR 140 observed with JWST

Nature Astronomy volume 6, pages 1308–1316 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Massive colliding-wind binaries that host a Wolf–Rayet (WR) star present a potentially important source of dust and chemical enrichment in the interstellar medium. However, the chemical composition and survival of dust formed from such systems is not well understood. The carbon-rich Wolf–Rayet binary WR 140 presents an ideal astrophysical laboratory for investigating these questions, given its well-defined orbital period and predictable dust-formation episodes every 7.93 years around periastron passage. We present observations from our Early Release Science programme (ERS 1349) with the James Webb Space Telescope Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) Medium-Resolution Spectrometer and Imager that reveal the spectral and spatial signatures of nested circumstellar dust shells around WR 140. MIRI medium-resolution spectroscopy of the second dust shell and Imager detections of over 17 shells formed throughout approximately the past 130 years confirm the survival of carbonaceous dust grains from WR 140 that are probably carriers of ‘unidentified infrared’-band features at 6.4 and 7.7 μm. The observations indicate that dust-forming carbon-rich Wolf–Rayet binaries can enrich the interstellar medium with organic compounds and carbonaceous dust.

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Fig. 1: JWST/MIRI observations of WR 140.
Fig. 2: Views of the single-shell geometric dust model of WR 140 at the orbital configuration of MIRI observations.
Fig. 3: Comparison of the MIRI F1500W image of WR 140 with the 20-shell geometric dust model.
Fig. 4: Radial plots across C1 dust features from Imager observations and the geometric dust model.
Fig. 5: MIRI MRS spectroscopy of the C1 feature in shell 2.

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Data availability

Data used in this study were obtained under JWST Director’s Discretionary Early Release Science programme ID ERS 1349 and have no exclusive access period. Data can be obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST; https://archive.stsci.edu/missions-and-data/jwst).

Code availability

This research made use of Astropy, a community-developed core Python package for Astronomy42. This research also made use of Jdaviz, which is a package of astronomical data analysis visualization tools based on the Jupyter platform43.

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Acknowledgements

R.M.L. thanks the members of the entire WR DustERS team for their valuable discussions and contributions to this work. We thank A. Moro-Martin, W. Januszewki, N. Reid, M. Meixner and B. Meinke for their support in the planning and execution of our ERS programme. We would also like to acknowledge the MIRI instrument and MIRISim teams for their insightful feedback and support of our observation and data analysis plans. We are grateful to K. Gordon for his guidance on the MIRI Imager data reduction. The work of R.M.L. is supported by NOIRLab, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. Y.H. acknowledges funding from the Gates Cambridge Trust. M.F.C. and K.H. were supported by NASA under award number 80GSFC21M0002. O.C.J. acknowledges support from an STFC Webb fellowship. A.F.J.M. is grateful for financial aid from NSERC (Canada). J.S.-B. acknowledges support from the Mexican Council of Science (CONACyT) "Ciencia de Frontera" project CF-2019/263975. C.M.P.R. acknowledges support from NATA ATP grant number 80NSSC22K0628 and NASA Chandra Theory grant number TM2-23003X. This work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. The data were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract number NAS 5-03127 for JWST. These observations are associated with programme ERS 1349. Support for programme ERS 1349 was provided by NASA through a grant from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract number NAS 5-03127.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. NOIRLab, NSF, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Ryan M. Lau

  2. Arkansas Tech University, Russellville, AR, USA

    Matthew J. Hankins

  3. Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Yinuo Han

  4. Instituut voor Sterrenkunde, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Ioannis Argyriou

  5. CRESST II and X-ray Astrophysics Laboratory, NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, USA

    Michael F. Corcoran & Kenji Hamaguchi

  6. Institute for Astrophysics and Computational Sciences, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA

    Michael F. Corcoran

  7. Department of Physics, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Jan J. Eldridge

  8. Department of Astronomy, School of Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Izumi Endo & Takashi Onaka

  9. Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Ori D. Fox, Theodore R. Gull & David R. Law

  10. European Space Agency, Madrid, Spain

    Macarena Garcia Marin

  11. Space Telescope and Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Macarena Garcia Marin

  12. Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory, NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, USA

    Theodore R. Gull

  13. UK Astronomy Technology Centre, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, UK

    Olivia C. Jones

  14. Department of Physics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Kenji Hamaguchi

  15. Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CNRS, Laboratoire Lagrange, Nice, France

    Astrid Lamberts

  16. Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CNRS, Laboratoire Artémis, Nice, France

    Astrid Lamberts

  17. Department of Physics and Astronomy, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA, USA

    Thomas Madura

  18. Science Systems and Applications Inc., Lanham, MD, USA

    Sergey V. Marchenko

  19. NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, USA

    Sergey V. Marchenko

  20. Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Sagamihara, Japan

    Hideo Matsuhara & Ryodai Yamaguchi

  21. Département de physique, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Anthony F. J. Moffat

  22. Centre de Recherche en Astrophysique du Québec, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Anthony F. J. Moffat

  23. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Mark R. Morris

  24. Caltech/IPAC, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Patrick W. Morris

  25. Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Meisei University, Tokyo, Japan

    Takashi Onaka

  26. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Michael E. Ressler

  27. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott, AZ, USA

    Noel D. Richardson

  28. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Bartol Research Institute, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA

    Christopher M. P. Russell

  29. Instituto de Astronomía, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico

    Joel Sanchez-Bermudez

  30. Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Heidelberg, Germany

    Joel Sanchez-Bermudez

  31. Department of Astronomy, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Nathan Smith

  32. Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France

    Anthony Soulain

  33. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Ian R. Stevens

  34. Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Peter Tuthill

  35. Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Bonn, Germany

    Gerd Weigelt

  36. Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, UK

    Peredur M. Williams

  37. Graduate School of Science and Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan

    Ryodai Yamaguchi

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  1. Ryan M. Lau
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Contributions

R.M.L. led the analysis and is PI of the WR DustERS Team. R.M.L. and M.J.H. conceived and designed the project. I.A. and D.R.L. processed the MRS data, and M.G.M. processed the MIRI imaging data. Y.H. and P.T. constructed the geometric models of WR 140. All authors contributed to observation planning and/or scientific interpretation as members of the WR DustERS Team.

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Correspondence to Ryan M. Lau.

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Lau, R.M., Hankins, M.J., Han, Y. et al. Nested dust shells around the Wolf–Rayet binary WR 140 observed with JWST. Nat Astron 6, 1308–1316 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-022-01812-x

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