The James Webb Space Telescope captured a fiery image of a protostar in the early stages of its life.
The James Webb Space Telescope has captured this image of the “fiery cosmic hourglass” of a dark cloud hiding a protostar. These clouds are within the Taurus star-forming region and are only visible in infrared light, making them an appropriate candidate to be captured by Webb’s NIRCam. (Near-Infrared Camera)
The protostar, which is hidden from view, is in the “neck” of the hourglass. The dark line that is visible cutting across the neck is a protoplanetary disc. The light from the star leaks on both sides of this disc, which illuminates the cavities in the gas and dust.
In the images, you can also see filaments of molecular hydrogen that are getting shocked by the material ejected by the protostar. Under normal circumstances, stars would be forming throughout the cloud but the shocks and turbulence from the protostar stop this. Due to this, the protostar dominates the region and takes much of the material for itself.
Despite the chaotic circumstances surrounding its existence, this protostar, dubbed L1527, is only about 100,000 years old. It is considered a class 0 protostar, which is the earliest stage of star formation. This kind of protostar, still cocooned in dark clouds of dust and gas, has a long way to go before it becomes a full-fledged star.
Its shape is mostly spherical but it is also unstable. It takes the form of a puffy clump of gas that is somewhere between 20 to 40 per cent the mass of our Sun. Also, the protostar does not yet generate its own energy through the nuclear fusion of hydrogen yet, which is an essential characteristic of stars.