A Star Is Born and the World’s Most Powerful Telescope Captures It!

The breathtaking image of a flaming cosmic hourglass covered in gorgeous orange and blue dust and sheltering a very young star, or protostar, was captured by NASA's James Webb Telescope, and it has scientists at NASA excited and enthralled. According to NASA, the image taken by Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) provides insight into the birth of a new star and displays the protostar's previously concealed features amid the dark cloud L1527. The Jameswebb Instagram page reveals that there appears to be a dark line at the very center of the "hourglass" that's an edge-on view of a protoplanetary disk, or the disk of material being pulled into the star as it forms. It's about the size of our solar system and may eventually clump into planets, giving us a window into our solar system's history. This star is still developing and contains a disc of debris. It is situated 450 light years away and is being born in a star-forming region called the Taurus. The star will continue to contract under its gravitational pull over the next million years to fully form as a star. The Milky Way galaxy alone has 400 billion stars.  The image is accessible for us to view because of JWST's strong capabilities. Otherwise, in infrared wavelengths, these celestial objects are concealed from the naked eye.