The colors within this mid-infrared image reveal details about the central protostar’s behavior.
The cosmos seems to come alive with
a crackling explosion of pyrotechnics in this new image from NASA’s James Webb
Space Telescope. Taken with Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), this fiery
hourglass marks the scene of a very young object in the process of becoming a
star. A central protostar grows in the neck of the hourglass, accumulating
material from a thin protoplanetary disk, seen edge-on as a dark line.
The protostar, a relatively young
object of about 100,000 years, is still surrounded by its parent molecular
cloud, or large region of gas and dust. Webb’s previous observation of L1527, with NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera),
allowed us to peer into this region and revealed this molecular cloud and
protostar in opaque, vibrant colors.
Image A: L1527 - Webb/MIRI
L1527, shown in this image from NASA’s James Webb
Space Telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), is a molecular cloud that
harbors a protostar. It resides about 460 light-years from Earth in the
constellation Taurus. The more diffuse blue light and the filamentary
structures in the image come from organic compounds known as polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), while the red at the center of this image is an
energized, thick layer of gases and dust that surrounds the protostar. The
region in between, which shows up in white, is a mixture of PAHs, ionized gas,
and other molecules. This image includes filters representing 7.7 microns light
as blue, 12.8 microns light as green, and 18 microns light as red.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
Both NIRCam and MIRI show the
effects of outflows, which are emitted in opposite directions along the
protostar’s rotation axis as the object consumes gas and dust from the
surrounding cloud. These outflows take the form of bow shocks to the
surrounding molecular cloud, which appear as filamentary structures throughout.
They are also responsible for carving the bright hourglass structure within the
molecular cloud as they energize, or excite, the surrounding matter and cause the regions above
and below it to glow. This creates an effect reminiscent of fireworks
brightening a cloudy night sky. Unlike NIRCam, however, which mostly shows the
light that is reflected off dust, MIRI provides a look into how these outflows
affect the region’s thickest dust and gases.
The areas colored here in blue,
which encompass most of the hourglass, show mostly carbonaceous molecules known
as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The protostar itself and the dense blanket
of dust and a mixture of gases that surround it are represented in red. (The
sparkler-like red extensions are an artifact of the telescopes’s optics). In between, MIRI reveals a white region directly
above and below the protostar, which doesn’t show as strongly in the NIRCam
view. This region is a mixture of hydrocarbons, ionized neon, and thick dust,
which shows that the protostar propels this matter quite far away from it as it
messily consumes material from its disk.
As the protostar continues to age
and release energetic jets, it’ll consume, destroy, and push away much of this
molecular cloud, and many of the structures we see here will begin to fade.
Eventually, once it finishes gathering mass, this impressive display will end,
and the star itself will become more apparent, even to our visible-light
telescopes.
The combination of analyses from
both the near-infrared and mid-infrared views reveal the overall behavior of
this system, including how the central protostar is affecting the surrounding
region. Other stars in Taurus, the star-forming region where L1527 resides, are
forming just like this, which could lead to other molecular clouds being
disrupted and either preventing new stars from forming or catalyzing their
development.The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space
science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking
beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious
structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an
international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space
Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
The James Webb Space Telescope is
the world's premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our
solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing
the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb
is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space
Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
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Source: NASA’s Webb Captures Celestial Fireworks Around Forming Star - NASA Science
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