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Planetary nebulae (PNe), the ejected envelopes of red giant stars, provide uswith a history of the last, mass-losing phases of 90 percent of stars initiallymore massive than the Sun. Here, we analyse James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)Early Release Observation (ERO) images of the PN NGC3132. A structured,extended H2 halo surrounding an ionised central bubble is imprinted with spiralstructures, likely shaped by a low-mass companion orbiting the central star at40-60 AU. The images also reveal a mid-IR excess at the central starinterpreted as a dusty disk, indicative of an interaction with another, closercompanion. Including the previously known, A-type visual companion, theprogenitor of the NGC3132 PN must have been at least a stellar quartet. TheJWST images allow us to generate a model of the illumination, ionisation andhydrodynamics of the molecular halo, demonstrating the power of JWST toinvestigate complex stellar outflows. Further, new measurements of the A-typevisual companion allow us to derive the value for the mass of the progenitor ofa central star to date with excellent precision: 2.86+/-0.06 Mo. These resultsserve as path finders for future JWST observations of PNe providing uniqueinsight into fundamental astrophysical processes including colliding winds, andbinary star interactions, with implications for supernovae and gravitationalwave systems.

The messy death of a multiple star system and the resulting planetary nebula as observed by JWST