NASA’s James Webb Telescope just obtained an incredible image of a blazing cosmic hourglass covering a very young star, or protostar, and covered in vivid orange and blue dust. According to NASA, the image taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) provides insight into the birth of a new star and displays the protostar’s previously concealed features amid the black cloud L1527.
The protostar is about 430 light years away from Earth in the Taurus molecular cloud, which also contains hundreds of recently formed stars.
The image depicts a protostar concealed beneath the ‘neck’ of this hourglass-shaped object. Light from the protostar leaks above and below this disk, illuminating cavities within the surrounding gas and dust.
The celestial body, which contains the protostar and its cloud and is named L1527, is only about 100,000 years old and unable to generate its own energy through nuclear fusion of hydrogen, an essential characteristic of stars.
The protostar, which is around the size of our solar system, is surrounded by a black disc that will continue to feed it material until it ultimately achieves ‘the threshold for nuclear fusion to begin,’ according to NASA.
Post Your Comments