NASA celebrated a year of exploration with the James Webb Space Telescope on Wednesday July 12, unveiling a breathtaking new image that showcases the birth of Sun-like stars. In the image, vibrant streams of red gas erupt into the cosmos, while a luminous cavern of dust captivates the viewer’s gaze.
Jets of red gas bursting into the cosmos, and a glowing cave of dust: NASA marked a year of discovery by the James Webb Space Telescope Wednesday with a spectacular new image of Sun-like stars being born.
The picture is of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the nearest stellar nursery to Earth, whose proximity at 390 light-years allows for a crisp close-up by the most powerful orbital observatory ever built.
Webb’s image shows around 50 young stars, of similar mass to our Sun or smaller.
Some have the signature shadows of circumstellar disks, a sign that planets may eventually form around them.
Huge jets of hydrogen appear horizontally in the upper third of the image, and vertically on the right.
Interstellar space is filled with gas and dust, which in turn serves as the raw material for new stars and planets.
Webb was launched in December 2021 from French Guiana, on a 1.5 million kilometer (nearly one million mile) voyage to a region called the second Lagrange point.
Its first full color picture was revealed by President Joe Biden on July 11, 2022: the clearest view yet of the early universe, going back 13 billion years.
The next wave included “mountains” and “valleys” of a star-forming region, dubbed the Cosmic Cliffs, in the Carina Nebula; and a grouping of five galaxies bound in a celestial dance, called Stephan’s Quintet.
Khalil Wakim, with AFP
