Cosmic Hourglass Reveals the Birth of a Star: The most captivating image yet from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope depicts the cosmic chaos brought on by a very young star.
The dark, hourglass-shaped cloud of gas and dust that the image is centred around has a neck that conceals the protostar from view. A protoplanetary disc, which is dark in the centre of the neck and is around the size of our solar system, is a region of dense gas and dust that may one day give rise to a planet. According to a press release, the protostar’s light extends over and below this disc.
It still has a long way to go before it can be considered a true star. The protostar and its cloud are collectively referred to as L1527. The protostar is only 100,000 years old, making it a young celestial body in comparison to the sun, which is 4.6 billion years old.
The Space Telescope Science Institute on the Johns Hopkins University campus in Baltimore City serves as the telescope’s operational hub.
According to the press release, the image’s blue and orange clouds depict cavities formed when material ejected from the protostar collides with the surroundings.
Only infrared light picked up by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera, or NIRCam, can the nebula’s brilliant hues be seen. Because infrared light is unseen to the human eye, Webb is particularly important for uncovering otherwise undiscovered features of the cosmos.
The dust is thinnest in the blue regions. A layer of dust that is too thick prevents blue light from escaping, resulting in pockets of orange light.
Countdown to a new star ⏳
Hidden in the neck of this “hourglass” of light are the very beginnings of a new star — a protostar. The clouds of dust and gas within this region are only visible in infrared light, the wavelengths that Webb specializes in: https://t.co/DtazblATMW pic.twitter.com/aGEEBO9BB8
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) November 16, 2022
“New stars wouldn’t form in the cloud if shocks and turbulence didn’t exist, but they do when they do. As a result, the protostar rules the area and hoards most of the material “based on the press release.
The protostar has not yet developed the ability to produce its own energy through the nuclear fusion of hydrogen, a fundamental feature of stars. Its form, a puffy clump of hot gas that makes up 20% to 40% of our sun’s mass, is likewise unstable.
The picture gives background for what the early solar system and our sun looked like.
Webb is a joint project of NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, and the European Space Agency that initially started releasing fresh insights into the cosmos in July.
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