NASA telescope captures breathtaking image of stars being born
If you’ve ever wanted to know what stars look like at birth, here’s your chance.
On Wednesday, NASA revealed the latest photo from the James Webb Space Telescope, which shows an incredibly up-close look at a region containing almost 50 young stars, all similar to the sun’s mass or smaller, according to the space agency.
The star region is located about 390 light-years away.
The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex/NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (STScI)
The star-forming region is called the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth.
The darkest areas of the star region are the densest, said NASA, because thick dust covers very young stars known as “protostars.”
The red areas are bipolar jets of molecular hydrogen, which occur when a star first emerges through a “natal envelope of cosmic dust, shooting out a pair of opposing jets into space like a newborn first stretching her arms out into the world,” stated the space agency.
In a release, Klaus Pontoppida, a Webb project scientist, noted that the “image of Rho Ophiuchi allows us to witness a very brief period in the stellar lifecycle with new clarity. Our own sun experienced a phase like this long ago, and now we have the technology to see the beginning of another’s star’s story.”
The image was released to mark the first anniversary of the James Webb Space Telescope.
It is NASA’s most powerful space science telescope that uses infrared technology and a 6.5-meter primary mirror to capture images.
The first image captured by the telescope was revealed on July 11, 2022.
“In just one year, the James Webb Space Telescope has transformed humanity’s view of the cosmos, peering into dust clouds and seeing light from faraway corners of the universe for the very first time,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a release.
“Every new image is a new discovery, empowering scientists around the globe to ask and answer questions they once could never dream of.”
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