See a new star being born in stunning James Webb image

By Georgina Torbet November 19, 2022

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a stunning image of the birth of a new star. As dust and gas clump together and eventually collapses under the force of gravity, it becomes a protostar: the core of a new star, rotating and forming a magnetic field, throwing off material in two dramatic jets of gas.

This process is on display in this image of the cloud L1527, taken using Webb’s NIRCam instrument. Looking in the infrared, this camera can capture the clouds of material given off by the protostar which would be invisible to the human eye.

The protostar L1527, shown in this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. — The protostar L1527, shown in this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, is embedded within a cloud of material that is feeding its growth. Material ejected from the star has cleared out cavities above and below it, whose boundaries glow orange and blue in this infrared view. The upper central region displays bubble-like shapes due to stellar ‘burps,’ or sporadic ejections. Webb also detects filaments made of molecular hydrogen that has been shocked by past stellar ejections. Intriguingly, the edges of the cavities at the upper left and lower right appear straight, while the boundaries at the upper right and lower left are curved. The region at the lower right appears blue, as there’s less dust between it and Webb than the orange regions above it. NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI, J. DePasquale (STScI)

In the image, the protostar itself can’t be seen but is located right in the center of the hourglass shape. That shape is formed from clouds of dust and gas which are shaped by the jets given off by the protostar, with thinner areas of dust appearing blue and thicker areas appearing orange. In addition to the dust, there are also filaments of hydrogen gas visible, shaped by ejections from the protostar.

Researchers estimate that this protostar is around 100,000 years old, making it a baby by stellar standards. For comparison, our sun is around 4.6 billion years old and is expected to live to around 9 to 10 billion years of age. The protostar is also smaller than our sun, at between 20 to 40% of its mass, and most importantly it is not yet producing heat through fusion.

The protostar will continue gathering dust and gas and increasing in mass. As this material falls into the protostar due to gravity, it heats up because of friction. To start fusing hydrogen, the protostar needs to reach a core temperature of around 10 million degrees Kelvin. At this temperature, the gases become plasma, and hydrogen atoms start fusing together to form helium, releasing energy in the form of heat and light. This is the point at which a protostar becomes a main sequence star.

Some of the material left around the protostar could even become a planet one day. “Ultimately, this view of L1527 provides a window onto what our Sun and Solar System looked like in their infancy,” Webb scientists write.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Tech News

Georgina Torbet

Space Writer

Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…

Space

James Webb detects water vapor in rocky planet’s atmosphere — maybe

This artist concept represents the rocky exoplanet GJ 486 b, which orbits a red dwarf star that is only 26 light-years away in the constellation Virgo. By observing GJ 486 b transit in front of its star, astronomers sought signs of an atmosphere. They detected hints of water vapor. However, they caution that while this might be a sign of a planetary atmosphere, the water could be on the star itself – specifically, in cool starspots – and not from the planet at all.

The hunt for habitable exoplanets is on, and with the James Webb Space Telescope, we finally have a tool that can not only detect the presence of a planet in another star system, but can also look at the composition of its atmosphere. That ability will eventually allow us to find Earth-like planets wthat are good candidates for searching for life, but measuring the atmosphere of something so far away isn't an easy matter.

Webb recently saw exciting signs in the form of water vapor detected in the vicinity of the exoplanet GJ 486 b. That could indicate the presence of water in its atmosphere, but it could also be from another source: the outer layer of the planet's host star. Researchers are working through the data and hope to use another of Webb's instruments to make the final call.

Space

Hubble celebrates its 33rd birthday with stunning nebula image

Astronomers are celebrating the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s 33rd launch anniversary with an ethereal photo of a nearby star-forming region, NGC 1333. The nebula is in the Perseus molecular cloud, and is located approximately 960 light-years away.

It will soon be the 33rd anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, and to celebrate this milestone, Hubble scientists have shared a stunning image taken by the telescope of a picturesque nebula. NGC 1333 is a busy stellar nursery, with new stars forming among the cloud of dust and gas located 960 light-years away.

The beautiful image of the nebula shows swirls of dark dust around glowing points of light where new stars are being born. To capture this scene, Hubble used its instruments across their full wavelengths, from ultraviolet through the optical light range and into the near-infrared. Hubble took the image using its Wide Field Camera 3 instrument, which used several filter across different wavelengths that were then assigned to colors (Blue: F475W, Green: F606W, Red: F657N and F814W) to create the colorful final result.

Space

James Webb captures a stunning image of two galaxies merging

Shining like a brilliant beacon amidst a sea of galaxies, Arp 220 lights up the night sky in this view from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Actually two spiral galaxies in the process of merging, Arp 220 glows brightest in infrared light, making it an ideal target for Webb. It is an ultra-luminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) with a luminosity of more than a trillion suns. In comparison, our Milky Way galaxy has a much more modest luminosity of about ten billion suns.

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a gorgeous image of a dramatic cosmic event: two galaxies colliding. The two spiral galaxies are in the process of merging, and are glowing brightly in the infrared wavelength in which James Webb operates, shining with the light of more than a trillion suns.

It is not uncommon for two (or more) galaxies to collide and merge, but the two pictured in this image are giving off particularly bright infrared light. The pair has a combined name, Arp 220, as they appear as a single object when viewed from Earth. Known as an ultraluminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG), Arp 220 glows far more brightly than a typical spiral galaxy like our Milky Way.