NASA's Webb Space Captures Fiery Hourglass as New Star Forms
See the Formation of a New Star: NASA's Webb Space Telescope captured hidden features of a protostar and saw Fiery Hourglass as a New Star forms.
The blazing formation within the Taurus star-forming region and the protostar within it is hidden by the dark cloud of gas and dust known as L1527.
The dark cloud L1527's protostar's previously hidden features have now been revealed by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. This image provides new information about the beginnings of a new star.
It is an ideal target for Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) since these blazing clouds within the Taurus star-forming region are only visible in infrared light.
The "neck" of this hourglass shape contains the protostar itself, which is hidden from view. A dark line across the middle of the neck shows an edge-on protoplanetary disc.
Light from the protostar leaks above and below this disk, that illuminates cavities within the surrounding gas and dust.
In this representative-color infrared image, the region's prominent features, Blue & Orange clouds outline cavities created as material shoots away from the protostar and collides with surrounding matter.
The colors themselves are caused by dust layers between Webb and the clouds.
Blue areas are where the dust is thinnest. The thicker the dust layer, the less blue light is able to escape, creating Orange pockets.
Filaments of molecular hydrogen that have been shocked by the protostar's material ejections are also revealed by Webb.
Shocks and turbulence prevent new stars from forming, which would otherwise form all throughout the cloud. The protostar thus dominates the space and taking much of the material for itself.
L1527, the cause of these chaotic conditions, is a relatively young body being only about 100,000 years old.
What is L1527?
This image of L1527 gives us a glimpse into what our Sun and solar system looked like in their infancy.
Missions like the Infrared Astronomical Satellite observed the age and brightness of the L1527 star in far-infrared light and classified it as a class 0 protostar because of its young age and infrared brightness.
The L1527 star is considered a class 0 protostar by astronomers, which denotes the earliest stage of star formation, according to its young age and its brightness.
Class 0 Protostars like this one are still cocooned within the gas and dust formation clouds and are still some way away from becoming full-fledged stars.
L1527 does not yet generate its own energy through the nuclear fusion of hydrogen that is an essential characteristic of stars.
Currently, the protostar's shape is mostly spherical but still unstable and takes the form of a small, hot, and puffy clump of gas somewhere between 20% and 40% of the mass of our Sun.
The protostar's core gradually compresses and gets closer to stable nuclear fusion as it continues to gather mass.
This image reveals L1527 doing exactly that.
The surrounding molecular cloud is made up of dense dust and gas being drawn to the center, where the protostar resides. As the material falls in, it spirals around the center.
This creates an accretion disc, a dense disc of material, that feeds material to the protostar.
As it gains more mass and compresses further, its core's temperature will increase, eventually reaching the threshold for nuclear fusion to start.
The disk, seen in the image as a dark band in front of the bright center, is about the size of our solar system.
Given its density, it's common for much of this material to clump together and form the beginnings of planets.
(Credit : ESA/Webb, NASA)