James Webb Telescope uncovers linear dust pattern in Wolf‑Rayet 137 binary

The James Webb Space Telescope, using its Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) equipped with aperture masking interferometry (AMI), observed the massive Wolf‑Rayet 137 binary system. The technique places a mask with multiple pinholes in the light path, effectively turning the primary mirror into several smaller telescopes and achieving angular resolution of about 80 milliarcseconds at 4.8 µm.

Scientists led by Joel Sánchez Bermúdez of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (DustERS team) resolved faint dust formed in the colliding‑wind region between the Wolf‑Rayet star (≈10 times the Sun’s mass) and its 17‑solar‑mass companion, at distances of 100–200 AU. The dust appears as an unexpected straight‑line filament rather than the predicted pinwheel shape, indicating unique wind interactions. This is the first JWST AMI study of such a system and showcases the method’s potential for probing dust formation around massive stars.