Setting the universe ablaze with bursts of color, the James Webb Telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) captured this fiery scene of a very young cosmic object becoming a star.
At the neck of the hourglass shape, a central protostar about 100,000 years old can be seen growing, still surrounded by its parent molecule of gas and dust.
The James Webb Space Telescope is „the world’s premier space science laboratory,” according to NASA.
„Webb solves the mysteries of our solar system, looks beyond the distant worlds around other stars, and explores the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it.”
The image shows the effects of outflows radiating in opposite directions along the protostar’s rotation axis as the object absorbs gas and dust from its surroundings.
NASA explains:
„These discharges take the form of bow shocks to the surrounding molecular cloud, appearing as filamentary structures across them. They are responsible for carving out the bright hourglass structure within the molecular cloud, which excites, or excites, the surrounding material and illuminates its upper and lower regions.”
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The effect is reminiscent of fireworks at a high-end New Year’s Eve party.
A protostar forms from a nebula, a large cloud of dust and gas in space, mostly composed of hydrogen. As gravity pulls the elements together and it heats up, the hydrogen nuclei fuse together to form helium, and a protostar is formed.
As the protostar continues to age and emit energetic jets, it will consume and destroy its molecular cloud environment, and many of the beautiful structures we see in this image will fade.
„Eventually, as it finishes gathering mass, this impressive display will end, and the star will be clearly visible even to our visible-light telescopes,” explains NASA.
Analysis of both Webb MIRI and Webb Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) images reveals the overall makeup and behavior of the system, including the effect the developing protostar has on its environment.
NASA said:
„Other stars in Taurus, the star-forming region where L1527 resides, are forming in a similar way, which could lead to disruption of other molecular clouds and prevent the formation of new stars or their growth.”
Check out our guide to the best cameras for astrophotography, the best lenses for astrophotography, and the best star tracker camera mounts for astrophotography.