Providing new insight into the process of star birth, the James Webb space telescope reveals nature’s secrets. Source: Nypost
This extraordinary image from the James Webb Space Telescope provides new insight into the process of star birth. Through his telescope, he showed the protostar HH 212 which is about 1,300 light years from Earth.
HH 212 was first discovered in 1993, located near Orion’s Belt and astronomers have spent the last three decades taking images to reveal how this budding star slowly formed.
However, according to Mark McCaughrean, a senior advisor at the European Space Agency, this is the first time scientists have seen one “amazing color pictures” from protostars, which was previously impossible with telescopes on Earth.
The new image reveals intricate details of star formation, with symmetrical wisps of pink emission gas originating from both poles of the protostar. McCaughrean explains that these neon bursts, known as jets or outflows, are a byproduct of star birth, and their bright colors indicate the presence of hydrogen molecules.
“As the lumpy ball of gas at the center solidifies, it begins to spin,” he explained in an interview with the BBC. “But if it spins too fast, it gets thrown out, so something has to take away its angular momentum… We believe it’s the jet and the outflow.”
2023-11-08 12:20:27
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