The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has once again amazed us with its remarkable capabilities, this time capturing an extraordinary image of the birth of a protostar called HH12, located approximately 1,300 light-years away from Earth. This image is an incredible milestone in our quest to understand the complex process of star formation and provides valuable insights into the birth of celestial bodies.
Protostar formation view
The image reveals HH12, a protostar estimated to be around 50,000 years old. While the image doesn’t show the glowing center of the protostar because it remains hidden in a cocoon of gas and dust, it does show the fascinating pink-red jets that the protostar emits in opposite directions.
Understanding star formation is a complex puzzle, and this image sheds light on a crucial piece of it. As the gas inside the protostar compresses and condenses, it begins to rotate. However, if this rotation becomes too fast, the star could disintegrate. To prevent this, a mechanism is needed to remove the excess angular momentum. This is where the pink-red nozzles come into play.
Professor Mark McCaughrean, the European Space Agency’s chief science advisor, explains: “We think that these are jets and ejections. We think that as all the material contracts, the magnetic fields pull together and some of the material gets in the disk and gets caught on magnetic fields and is ejected across the poles. That’s why we call these structures bipolar.
The reddish tint in the image is attributed to the presence of molecular hydrogen, which adds to this celestial phenomenon’s captivating beauty.
A decade long journey
HH12 was originally discovered in 1993 near Orion’s belt. Over the past three decades, astronomers have diligently observed and collected images to unravel the complex process of protostar formation. The image represents a significant milestone because it is the first time scientists have obtained a “good color image” of a protostar, a feat unattainable with ground-based telescopes.
Not only does this image provide insight into the birth of protostars, it also offers a unique opportunity to study the birth of our own Sun. Scientists believe that the birth of the Sun would share similarities with the process observed in HH12, making this image a remarkable window into the past and the formation of our solar system.
Notable posts by JWST
Launched just two years ago, JWST has proven to be a worthy successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. It is located more than one million miles away at a point known as “Lagrange Point 2”. With its advanced instruments, it provides stunning images of deep space and expands our understanding of the universe.
In conclusion, JWST’s capture of the birth of HH12 is a testament to the telescope’s extraordinary capabilities and its invaluable contribution to our understanding of the universe. Not only does it provide insight into the formation of celestial bodies, it also offers a unique insight into the origins of our own Sun, a star that played a key role in the formation of our solar system.
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