NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured a striking image of a pair of stars surrounded by 17 wave-like rings. The star system is made up of two stellar bodies, one of which - known as a Wolf-Rayet star - is likely doomed to end its existence by collapsing into a super-dense black hole.

Wolf-Rayet stars live incredibly violent, and relatively short lives. They are born with a mass the equivalent to 25 times that of our Sun. However, over the course of tens of thousands of years, they forcefully expel much of their mass into the surrounding circumstellar environment. To date, roughly 600 of these rare stars have been discovered.

The JWST recently captured an image of the star system Wolf-Rayet 140, in which one of these mass shedding stars is orbiting in a binary system alongside a companion with a mass around 30 times that of our Sun.

When at their most distant, an expanse of 1.9 billion miles separates the two stars. However, once every eight years, their orbits bring the two enormous heavenly bodies to within a distance of just 93 million miles of each other - a little more than the average space between Earth and our home star.

At this point, fast flowing streams of particles blasting out from the surfaces of the stars - which collectively are known as stellar winds - slam into the mass of gas and carbon being cast off by the Wolf-Rayet.

This material is compressed and transformed into dust by the relentless onslaught of the stellar winds, thus creating the rings observed by the JWST in the present day.

The authors of a new study, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, believe that the rings have been able to preserve their well defined shape thanks to the pressure of the stellar winds that created them, which effectively clear out any debris that could disrupt their structure.

Prior to being imaged by Webb, astronomers using ground-based telescopes had only been able to spot two dust rings surrounding the binary system. However, the keen infrared abilities of the JWST’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) - which is capable of observing relatively cool objects against the backdrop of space - revealed a more complete view of the scene.

“We’re looking at over a century of dust production from this system,” comments lead author of the new study Ryan Lau, of the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab. “The image also illustrates just how sensitive this telescope is. Before, we were only able to see two dust rings, using ground-based telescopes. Now we see at least 17 of them.”

According to Lau and his co-authors, the rings we see in the new image were likely created over the course of the roughly 130 years prior to the point that the light left the system. Each ring marks an eight year period, as reliable as a cosmic metronome.

However, this is probably not the full story of Wolf-Rayet 140, as there are likely fainter rings beyond the outer boundary that cannot be seen, even by the powerful gaze of NASA’s latest flagship telescope.

Anthony Wood is a freelance science writer for IGN.

Image Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/JPL-Caltech

Overwatch 2 has reached over 25 million players in its first 10 days and it has already achieved a "daily player base spread near-even across EMEA, Asia, and the Americas that’s nearly triple the previous daily player peak from the original Overwatch."

Blizzard announced the news in a press release and it arrives following a rough launch for the free-to-play game. Despite the issues, players have continued to show up in droves.

"The launch of Overwatch 2 has been such an important moment for Blizzard. We’re thrilled to bring new players from around the world into Overwatch’s vibrant universe while welcoming back the existing Blizzard community,” said Mike Ybarra, president of Blizzard Entertainment. “This is only the beginning—there are so many possibilities to explore in the world of Overwatch, and we cannot wait for players to experience everything the team is building for the live game.”

As for that rough launch, Blizzard also detailed a bit about how they will be making it up to players for the issues that have arisen. In addition to gifting all players who log in from October 25 through the end of Season One the "all-new Cursed Captain Reaper Legendary skin and a Health Pack Weapon Charm," Blizzard also confirmed the dates for the upcoming double match XP weekends. They are as follows;

• Starting October 21 at 11:00 a.m. PT, ending October 24 at 11:00 a.m. PT
• Starting October 28 at 11:00 a.m. PT, ending October 31 at 11:00 a.m. PT
• Starting November 24 at 11:00 a.m. PT, ending November 28 at 11:00 a.m. PT

Blizzard also revealed that Kiriko, the newest support hero, has been a popular choice among players and her Kitsune Rush ultimate ability has been used over two million times in the first week alone.

Overwatch 2 was plagued by, among other things, DDoS attacks and issues that arose from Blizzard requiring players to connect a phone number to their account before playing. It has since apologized and offered up the previously mentioned gifts to make up for it.

Blizzard has also shared that it has been "happy to see that no hero’s overall power level is far out of line with our goals" and that Overwatch 2 won't be rebalanced until Season 2 begins in December.

For more check out our Overwatch 2 review and our wiki guide so you can become the best hero you can.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Overwatch 2 has reached over 25 million players in its first 10 days and it has already achieved a "daily player base spread near-even across EMEA, Asia, and the Americas that’s nearly triple the previous daily player peak from the original Overwatch."

Blizzard announced the news in a press release and it arrives following a rough launch for the free-to-play game. Despite the issues, players have continued to show up in droves.

"The launch of Overwatch 2 has been such an important moment for Blizzard. We’re thrilled to bring new players from around the world into Overwatch’s vibrant universe while welcoming back the existing Blizzard community,” said Mike Ybarra, president of Blizzard Entertainment. “This is only the beginning—there are so many possibilities to explore in the world of Overwatch, and we cannot wait for players to experience everything the team is building for the live game.”

As for that rough launch, Blizzard also detailed a bit about how they will be making it up to players for the issues that have arisen. In addition to gifting all players who log in from October 25 through the end of Season One the "all-new Cursed Captain Reaper Legendary skin and a Health Pack Weapon Charm," Blizzard also confirmed the dates for the upcoming double match XP weekends. They are as follows;

• Starting October 21 at 11:00 a.m. PT, ending October 24 at 11:00 a.m. PT
• Starting October 28 at 11:00 a.m. PT, ending October 31 at 11:00 a.m. PT
• Starting November 24 at 11:00 a.m. PT, ending November 28 at 11:00 a.m. PT

Blizzard also revealed that Kiriko, the newest support hero, has been a popular choice among players and her Kitsune Rush ultimate ability has been used over two million times in the first week alone.

Overwatch 2 was plagued by, among other things, DDoS attacks and issues that arose from Blizzard requiring players to connect a phone number to their account before playing. It has since apologized and offered up the previously mentioned gifts to make up for it.

Blizzard has also shared that it has been "happy to see that no hero’s overall power level is far out of line with our goals" and that Overwatch 2 won't be rebalanced until Season 2 begins in December.

For more check out our Overwatch 2 review and our wiki guide so you can become the best hero you can.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

When Gotham Knights arrives on consoles on October 21, it will do so with no performance mode and it will run at only 30 FPS.

As spotted by those like Wario64 on Twitter, the news was shared by Gotham Knights executive producer Fleur "Flaoua" Marty in the game's Discord channel, and she wanted to take the time to address this question for console players.

"I know many of you are wondering about the availability of a performance mode for Gotham Knights on consoles," Marty wrote. "Due to the types of features we have in our game, like providing a fully untethered co-op experience in our highly detailed open-world, it's not as straightforward as lowering the resolution and getting a higher FPS. For this reason, our game does not have a performance/quality toggle option and will run at 30FPS on consoles."

This news follows the announcement of Gotham Knights' Heroic Assault mode, which will be a free four-player co-op mode that will launch on November 29, 2022. Despite there being four heroes - Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, and Red Hood - Gotham Knights' campaign only supports single-player or two-player co-op. This new mode will give four friends the chance to take on arena-based challenges and see how all four heroes can work together to take down Gotham's criminals.

In our Gotham Knights final preview, we said that it "is not an easy game to demo, and while I walked away from my hands-on time less than impressed with many aspects of combat, I still found myself interested in playing more."

For more, check out why Gotham Knights created an older, wiser, more dangerous Harley Quinn and our thoughts from our first preview of the game back in August.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

When Gotham Knights arrives on consoles on October 21, it will do so with no performance mode and it will run at only 30 FPS.

As spotted by those like Wario64 on Twitter, the news was shared by Gotham Knights executive producer Fleur "Flaoua" Marty in the game's Discord channel, and she wanted to take the time to address this question for console players.

"I know many of you are wondering about the availability of a performance mode for Gotham Knights on consoles," Marty wrote. "Due to the types of features we have in our game, like providing a fully untethered co-op experience in our highly detailed open-world, it's not as straightforward as lowering the resolution and getting a higher FPS. For this reason, our game does not have a performance/quality toggle option and will run at 30FPS on consoles."

This news follows the announcement of Gotham Knights' Heroic Assault mode, which will be a free four-player co-op mode that will launch on November 29, 2022. Despite there being four heroes - Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, and Red Hood - Gotham Knights' campaign only supports single-player or two-player co-op. This new mode will give four friends the chance to take on arena-based challenges and see how all four heroes can work together to take down Gotham's criminals.

In our Gotham Knights final preview, we said that it "is not an easy game to demo, and while I walked away from my hands-on time less than impressed with many aspects of combat, I still found myself interested in playing more."

For more, check out why Gotham Knights created an older, wiser, more dangerous Harley Quinn and our thoughts from our first preview of the game back in August.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

While Gotham Knights' campaign will only support single-player or two-player co-op, a new mode called Heroic Assault will launch for free on November 29, 2022, that will let up to four players team up in arena-based challenges.

WB Games Montréal announced the news on Twitter and on Gotham Knights' FAQ page, saying, "Gotham has thrown down a new gauntlet. Heroic Assault, the free 4-player co-op experience, is coming to #GothamKnights November 29, 2022."

"Heroic Assault is an upcoming gameplay mode that is separate from the main story campaign," Gotham Knights' FAQ reads. "The standalone mode supports up to four players in online co-op and provides a dedicated arena-like environment with specific objectives to complete and enemies to defeat on each floor (30 floors total)."

For those hoping this would also bring four-player co-op to the main story campaign, WB Games Montréal has not said it is planning to bring four-player co-op to anything beyond Heroic Assault. Things can always change, but it doesn't look to be in the cards at the moment.

Gotham Knights will be released on October 21, 2022, and will let players experience a story in single-player or two-player co-op featuring Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, and Red Hood.

WB Games Montréal previously shared with IGN why it chose to limit co-op to two players despite there being four heroes, saying, "focusing more on the idea of the immediate team-up of two allowed us to say, 'OK, we can build a world that works perfectly well for either solo play or pairing off.'"

In our Gotham Knights final preview, we said that it "is not an easy game to demo, and while I walked away from my hands-on time less than impressed with many aspects of combat, I still found myself interested in playing more."

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

While Gotham Knights' campaign will only support single-player or two-player co-op, a new mode called Heroic Assault will launch for free on November 29, 2022, that will let up to four players team up in arena-based challenges.

WB Games Montréal announced the news on Twitter and on Gotham Knights' FAQ page, saying, "Gotham has thrown down a new gauntlet. Heroic Assault, the free 4-player co-op experience, is coming to #GothamKnights November 29, 2022."

"Heroic Assault is an upcoming gameplay mode that is separate from the main story campaign," Gotham Knights' FAQ reads. "The standalone mode supports up to four players in online co-op and provides a dedicated arena-like environment with specific objectives to complete and enemies to defeat on each floor (30 floors total)."

For those hoping this would also bring four-player co-op to the main story campaign, WB Games Montréal has not said it is planning to bring four-player co-op to anything beyond Heroic Assault. Things can always change, but it doesn't look to be in the cards at the moment.

Gotham Knights will be released on October 21, 2022, and will let players experience a story in single-player or two-player co-op featuring Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, and Red Hood.

WB Games Montréal previously shared with IGN why it chose to limit co-op to two players despite there being four heroes, saying, "focusing more on the idea of the immediate team-up of two allowed us to say, 'OK, we can build a world that works perfectly well for either solo play or pairing off.'"

In our Gotham Knights final preview, we said that it "is not an easy game to demo, and while I walked away from my hands-on time less than impressed with many aspects of combat, I still found myself interested in playing more."

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

FULL SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE SEASON ONE FINALE OF THE RINGS OF POWER.

After much speculation as to their identity, the eighth and final episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’s first season revealed which cast member had been the evil Sauron all along. After an initial misdirect that said Sauron was The Stranger (David Weyman), it was revealed later in the episode that the Dark Lord was, in fact, Halbrand (Charlie Vickers).

Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) began to suspect Halbrand was more than he seemed when he showed an abundance of interest in helping Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) forge what would become the first three rings of power. But when she discovered that the last king of the Southlands died centuries before without an heir, Halbrand acknowledged that he was indeed Sauron – and that Galadriel had helped bring her archenemy home.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Charlie Vickers said he initially didn’t know he was actually playing Sauron, but the materials he was given for his audition suggested he might be:

“I had maybe six or seven auditions, and when I got to the end of the audition process, they gave me two monologues. They gave me a monologue from Richard III at the end, when he's standing over a body and is basically being really evil. Then, the other one was from Paradise Lost, the poem by Milton, and it was literally Satan. So I had an inkling when I was doing those speeches that the character had some kind of a dark arc.”

It wasn’t until they were filming the third episode of the first season that the producers informed Vickers he was, indeed, playing Sauron. This secret was kept from most of the cast and crew – save for Vickers’ scene partner Morfydd Clark – as late into the production as possible.

Vickers told EW that he absorbed as much of J.R.R. Tolkien’s source material as he could in preparation for the role, reading all the books and supplemental materials including the author’s notes, including one in which the author revealed that, although the embodiment of evil, Sauron felt repentant following his actions in the First Age.

“Whether or not you view that repentance as genuine completely colors his actions of the season. You can look back at his actions, and they can be genuine repentance and it all makes sense. But if you look at him as manipulating everything and using Galadriel to bring him back,” Vickers said. “Of course, there are some coincidences that happen along the way, which play into his hands. But he is able to manipulate people. I have a clear answer as to what worked best for me, but I like to leave it kind of ambiguous for the audience because it creates a bit of interesting discussion. It makes it cool to look back on and leave it to interpretation, I think.”

Vickers is the first actor to play Sauron as a human being, and he likened Sauron’s ability to shape-shift and fully immerse himself into being a human in order to accomplish his agenda as being like a thespian, jokingly observing, “He's like the world's greatest Method actor. He's like Daniel Day-Lewis.”

Season One ends with Sauron reaching Mordor. Vickers told Variety in a separate interview that Sauron “has a plan. Going back into Mordor is the first stage of that plan. I’m not going to spoil it, but it doesn’t take long to find out in the second season. We find out pretty quickly. He definitely has a plan, and that’s where it begins, with those first few steps back down. I’ve started filming; we’re well underway in the second season. I’ve read a few scripts and am very much immersed in that world now.”

While Halbrand’s journey may now be over, Sauron’s has just begun …

What did you think of the Sauron reveal at the end of Season One? Let us know in the comments.

FULL SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE SEASON ONE FINALE OF THE RINGS OF POWER.

After much speculation as to their identity, the eighth and final episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’s first season revealed which cast member had been the evil Sauron all along. After an initial misdirect that said Sauron was The Stranger (David Weyman), it was revealed later in the episode that the Dark Lord was, in fact, Halbrand (Charlie Vickers).

Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) began to suspect Halbrand was more than he seemed when he showed an abundance of interest in helping Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) forge what would become the first three rings of power. But when she discovered that the last king of the Southlands died centuries before without an heir, Halbrand acknowledged that he was indeed Sauron – and that Galadriel had helped bring her archenemy home.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Charlie Vickers said he initially didn’t know he was actually playing Sauron, but the materials he was given for his audition suggested he might be:

“I had maybe six or seven auditions, and when I got to the end of the audition process, they gave me two monologues. They gave me a monologue from Richard III at the end, when he's standing over a body and is basically being really evil. Then, the other one was from Paradise Lost, the poem by Milton, and it was literally Satan. So I had an inkling when I was doing those speeches that the character had some kind of a dark arc.”

It wasn’t until they were filming the third episode of the first season that the producers informed Vickers he was, indeed, playing Sauron. This secret was kept from most of the cast and crew – save for Vickers’ scene partner Morfydd Clark – as late into the production as possible.

Vickers told EW that he absorbed as much of J.R.R. Tolkien’s source material as he could in preparation for the role, reading all the books and supplemental materials including the author’s notes, including one in which the author revealed that, although the embodiment of evil, Sauron felt repentant following his actions in the First Age.

“Whether or not you view that repentance as genuine completely colors his actions of the season. You can look back at his actions, and they can be genuine repentance and it all makes sense. But if you look at him as manipulating everything and using Galadriel to bring him back,” Vickers said. “Of course, there are some coincidences that happen along the way, which play into his hands. But he is able to manipulate people. I have a clear answer as to what worked best for me, but I like to leave it kind of ambiguous for the audience because it creates a bit of interesting discussion. It makes it cool to look back on and leave it to interpretation, I think.”

Vickers is the first actor to play Sauron as a human being, and he likened Sauron’s ability to shape-shift and fully immerse himself into being a human in order to accomplish his agenda as being like a thespian, jokingly observing, “He's like the world's greatest Method actor. He's like Daniel Day-Lewis.”

Season One ends with Sauron reaching Mordor. Vickers told Variety in a separate interview that Sauron “has a plan. Going back into Mordor is the first stage of that plan. I’m not going to spoil it, but it doesn’t take long to find out in the second season. We find out pretty quickly. He definitely has a plan, and that’s where it begins, with those first few steps back down. I’ve started filming; we’re well underway in the second season. I’ve read a few scripts and am very much immersed in that world now.”

While Halbrand’s journey may now be over, Sauron’s has just begun …

What did you think of the Sauron reveal at the end of Season One? Let us know in the comments.

Nvidia has announced that it is "unlaunching" the 12GB RTX 4080 graphics card after criticisms regarding the difference between this and the more powerful 16GB model.

Nvidia shared the news in a blog post, saying, "the RTX 4080 12GB is a fantastic graphics card, but it’s not named right. Having two GPUs with the 4080 designation is confusing."

"So, we’re pressing the 'unlaunch' button on the 4080 12GB," Nvidia continued. "The RTX 4080 16GB is amazing and on track to delight gamers everywhere on November 16th."

The 12GB RTX 4080 was set to launch alongside the 16GB model for $899, but it was going to do so with less RT, Tensor, and CUDA cores than the more expensive model.

The 16GB model will launch at $1,199 and will be the only 4080 model to launch on November 16, meaning those looking for a cheaper option will have to wait until Nvidia reveals its plan to relaunch the 12GB iteration.

As for the 40-series as a whole, it is built on the new Ada Lovelace architecture, which uses TSMC's 4nm N4 technology. This new architecture, which is named after the mathematician and writer of the same name, is the only graphical architecture to support the new third generation of DLSS.

If you need a bit more power than the 4080 series offers, Nvidia just launched its flagship GPU, the RTX 4090, for $1,599.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.