Wherever JWST looks in space, matter and energy interact in spectacular displays. Webb reveals more detail in these interactions than any other telescope because it can see through the dense gas and dust that shrouds many objects.
In a new image, JWST spots a young protostar just 100,000 years old.
The star is called L1527, and at this young age, it is still wrapped in the molecular cloud that gave birth to it. This is one of the reasons NASA built JWST (with help from ESA and CSA.) The telescope can see through dust and gas to detect the earliest stages of star formation.
This image was captured with MIRI, the Mid-Infrared Instrument. The new protostar is at the center of it all and is still growing. It is accreting mass from the surrounding protoplanetary disk. The disc is the small dark horizontal line in the center of the image.
The protostar is not a main sequence star, so it does not undergo fusion like the Sun. It may have a small amount of deuterium fusion in its core, but it generates energy in a different way.
As the star’s gravitational pull pulls the material closer, the material is compressed and heated. More energy comes from shock waves created by the incoming material colliding with the existing gas. This is the energy that lights up the star and its surroundings within the giant molecular cloud that created it.
As young protostars accumulate mass, they generate powerful magnetic fields. Combined with the star’s spin, these fields pull matter away from the star.
So as a protostar gains mass, it also ejects some of it back into space in spectacular hourglass-shaped jets coming from the star’s poles. These jets create visible arc shocks in the material around the star, which are filamentary structures.
There are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the star’s environment. They are organic compounds abundant throughout the Universe that may have contributed to the emergence of life. They glow blue in the image, including filamentous structures.
The red area in the center is a thick layer of gas and dust surrounding the young star, illuminated by the star’s energy. The white area between red and blue is a mixture of materials. There are more PAHs here, as well as ionized gases such as neon and other hydrocarbons.
This is not the first time JWST has examined L1527. In 2022, it observed the protostar with its Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam).
This beautiful display of the interplay of matter and energy is transitory.
Over time, the protostar’s powerful outflows will clear its surroundings of most of the gas and dust, although it will still have its protoplanetary disk. Eventually, the star will become a main sequence star, easily seen without its veil of gas and dust. By then, the star’s planetary system will take shape.
There are unanswered questions about protostar formation, and one of JWST’s primary science goals is star formation. For example, astrophysicists do not know exactly how and when fusion is triggered, and a protostar becomes a main sequence star.
Although astronomers know that there are strong magnetic fields around protostars, they don’t know exactly how they form and what role they play in the star’s collapse and rotation.
JWST has made some progress in this matter. It recently confirmed that jets from young stars are aligned due to the star’s rotation and magnetic fields, something supported by theory but not confirmed by observations so far.
There are also uncertainties about how binary stars form. Do they form in the same way as solitary stars? Why are so many stars binary?
The exact nature of the events that trigger star formation is also unclear. Shock waves from supernovae can cause stars to be born, but what about other times? Is it just a matter of density?
The answers to these questions will be growing. With its ability to see more detail in young stars and the swirling clouds of gas and dust that envelop them, JWST is making progress one image at a time.
This article was originally published by Universe Today. Read the original article.