The James Webb Space Telescope on Wednesday revealed bright images of a huge hourglass-shaped cloud of dust surrounding a forming star.
The clouds, colored blue and orange, were identified thanks to the telescope’s infrared camera (NIRCam).
“Protostar L1527” lies within a dark cloud in the star-forming region of Taurus and is only visible in infrared light.
The young star is hidden from view within the “neck” of the hourglass.
Its light, however, is filtered above and below the edge of a rotating disk of gases at the level of this “neck” and illuminates cavities within the surrounding gas and dust, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) explained in a statement. set.
The clouds were formed by the collision between the ejected material and the matter that surrounds it.
The blue parts indicate the areas where the dust is finer and the orange bubbles form in the thicker parts.
L1527 is only 100,000 years old, which makes it a relatively young celestial body, still incapable of generating its own energy through nuclear fusion of hydrogen, explains the statement.
The surrounding disk, seen as a dark band in front of the bright center, is about the size of our solar system.
“This view of L1527 provides a window into what our Sun and solar system looked like in their infancy,” emphasize the two scientific organizations.
The Taurus Molecular Cloud is located about 430 light years from Earth.
The James Webb Telescope began sending back its first color images in July from its orbit 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
Its construction required an investment of US$ 10 billion and its objective is to study the life cycle of stars.
I have worked in the news industry for over 10 years and have been an author at News Bulletin 247 for the past 5 years. I mostly cover technology news and enjoy writing about the latest gadgets and devices. I am also a huge fan of music and enjoy attending live concerts whenever possible.
