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The latest image from the James Webb Space Telescope's Mid-Infrared Camera (MIRI) brings to life a young star and its fiery sandbar. The protostar (protostar) is visible in the thinnest part of the hourglass, and the thin accretion disk surrounding it appears as a dark band around it.
What's unique about the image is that it also shows the interstellar cloud of dust and gas, marked L1572, surrounding a young progenitor star, about 100,000 years old. The James Webb Space Telescope's NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera) has already captured an image of this region, so it was possible to get a glimpse of the immediate environment of the molecular cloud and the star that was born in it.
Both NIRCam and MIRI images show jets of material ejected in two directions along the axis of rotation of the young star, created by the “feeding” of the progenitor star. These explosions create shock waves in the surrounding gas and dust, causing part of the molecular cloud to become excited into an hourglass shape, thus emitting light. This phenomenon is a magnificent spectacle, like the fireworks in the sky in the James Webb images. In contrast to NIRCam, which primarily shows light reflected from interstellar dust, the MIRI images also show the densest regions of the molecular cloud.
The images are dominated by blue colors, representing carbon molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The progenitor itself, as well as the surrounding core of gas and dense dust, are indicated in red. Between the blue and red regions, above and below the progenitor, is also a white region, visible only in MIRI images. In this region, hydrocarbons, ionized neon, and dense dust surround the carelessly feeding protostar.
In the coming times, once the progenitor star absorbs the surrounding molecular cloud material, the hourglass-shaped structure shown in the image will also fade and eventually disappear completely. Finally, when the progenitor star grows to a large enough mass, it begins fusing hydrogen into helium in its core, and instead of infrared radiation, it begins to emit radiation in the visible range as a new young star.
By analyzing the near- and mid-infrared data together, the researchers have the opportunity to examine the system that provides the birthplace of a future young star, and they can also gain insight into the interactions between the star’s progenitor and its environment. In addition to the molecular cloud L1527, which hosts the Hourglass, there are several other similar molecular clouds in the star-forming region of Taurus in the constellation Taurus, which may also begin forming stars in the near future. The collapse of molecular clouds can also lead to further star formation, but the violent processes occurring there can have an effect on their immediate environment that does the opposite and thus halts star formation.
Studying the dynamics of such molecular clouds could also be exciting in the future, as they could help us gain a deeper understanding of the process of star formation. The James Webb Space Telescope will continue to help us, constantly sending us its latest data that is waiting to be processed.
Article source: https://webbbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-125
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