Updated on: February 25, 2026 | By: Jameswebb Discovery Editorial Team – Curating JWST Insights Since 2022

Cosmic Brain Unveiled: Webb's NIRCam and MIRI Capture Mind-Bending Views of Dying Star's Final Act

Imagine looking through the most powerful space telescope ever built and suddenly seeing what looks exactly like a giant glowing brain floating in the darkness of space, complete with a see-through skull around it. That's what astronomers got when NASA's James Webb Space Telescope turned its gaze toward a distant cloud of gas and dust called the Exposed Cranium Nebula, or PMR 1 for short.This incredible discovery was shared by NASA on February 25, 2026, and it's already getting people talking because of how eerily brain-like it appears. The nebula sits about 5,000 light-years away from us in the constellation Vela (that's in the southern sky, so folks in the northern hemisphere can't spot it easily without help from big telescopes).

What Exactly Is a Planetary Nebula?

Don't let the name fool you — planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets. The term came from early astronomers who thought these glowing shells looked a bit like planets through small telescopes.In reality, they're the beautiful last gasp of a star that's running out of fuel. When a star like our Sun (or a bit bigger) gets old, it puffs up, then blasts its outer layers into space. What's left is a super-hot core that lights up the expanding cloud of gas and dust, making it glow brightly. This whole process happens over thousands of years — quick by cosmic standards — and the result is often a stunning, colorful shell in the sky.Most planetary nebulae look like rings, bubbles, or hourglasses. But PMR 1? It looks remarkably like a brain inside a clear skull, thanks to a thick dark streak running straight down the middle, dividing it into left and right halves just like our own brains.

Why Does This Nebula Look Like a Brain?

The "skull" is the outer bubble — a big, mostly hydrogen gas shell that the star threw off early in its dying phase. It's thin and somewhat see-through. Inside that bubble are denser, more complicated clouds of gas and dust — the "brain" part. These inner folds contain heavier stuff the star cooked up over its lifetime, like carbon and oxygen.That famous dark vertical line? Scientists think it's probably carved by powerful jets shooting out from the star in opposite directions, like twin garden hoses blasting away material and creating a clear path through the middle. In the mid-infrared images especially, you can see material bursting out the top (and a little from the bottom), showing those jets in action right now.It's wild to think a dying star can accidentally sculpt something that looks so much like part of our own bodies.

Webb's Two Super Cameras Show Totally Different Pictures

What makes these new photos so special is that Webb used two different "eyes" to look at the same spot:

• NIRCam (the near-infrared camera) acts like a super-sharp visible-light view but in infrared. It cuts right through dust, so you see:

  • A crisp white edge on the outer bubble

  • Bright orange inner clouds

  • That dark lane super clear and straight

  • Tons of stars in front and galaxies way behind shining through

• MIRI (the mid-infrared instrument) focuses on warmer dust and molecules. It reveals:

  • A bluish tint to the outer shell

  • Creamier, fuller-looking inner clouds packed with glowing dust

  • The dark lane still there, but fuzzier and more covered up

  • Dramatic plumes shooting upward, like the star is actively erupting material

Side by side, it's like getting two completely different stories from the same object. Near-infrared shows the skeleton and background; mid-infrared shows the warm, dusty "flesh" and the action happening now.

How This Compares to Older Views

Back in 2013, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (now retired) took the first good infrared look at PMR 1 and gave it the "Exposed Cranium" nickname because even then the shape jumped out. But Spitzer's pictures were fuzzier — more like a blurry snapshot. Webb turns that into a high-definition movie still. Comparison videos floating around online show how Spitzer's red-and-green blob becomes Webb's sharp, colorful masterpiece. It's a perfect example of how better tech reveals hidden details.

Why Should Anyone Care About This Nebula?

Beyond the cool brain shape, these objects are important for how the universe works. Stars like this one (probably a few times more massive than our Sun) forge elements we need for life — carbon for DNA, oxygen for breathing, nitrogen for proteins. When they die and create planetary nebulae, they scatter those elements back into space.New stars and planets form from that enriched gas and dust. In a way, the atoms in your body were once part of dying stars that looked a lot like this one. PMR 1 is helping recycle the building blocks of the cosmos.We still don't know exactly what will happen to the star at the center. If it's heavy enough, it might explode as a supernova someday. If not, it'll shrink into a tiny, super-dense white dwarf that slowly cools off like a dying ember over billions of years. Webb's sharp images are giving scientists better clues about the star's mass and what's coming next.

A Few Nerdy Details (But Still Simple)

The pictures use special infrared filters:

• NIRCam used blue, green, orange, and red channels (F150W, F187N, F444W, F470N)

• MIRI used its own set (F1000W, F1130W, F1280W, F1800W)

The scale? The whole scene spans about half a light-year — that's roughly 30 trillion miles across. All photos credit NASA, ESA (European Space Agency), CSA (Canadian Space Agency), and STScI, with awesome processing work by Joseph DePasquale. The science comes from Webb observing program 9224, led by astronomer M. Garcia Marin. Want the full-resolution versions, compass guides, or the cool comparison video? Head over to NASA's page: science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-examines-cranium-nebula 

The universe has a funny way of mirroring things we know here on Earth. A star on its deathbed creates something that looks just like the organ that lets us appreciate it all. Webb keeps delivering these mind-bending surprises, reminding us how vast, strange, and beautiful space really is. Stick around at www.jameswebbdiscovery.com — we'll keep bringing you the newest Webb finds, explained in plain English, from glowing nebulae to distant galaxies and everything in between.