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(Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (NASA-JPL), Joel Green (STScI))
What it is: The Serpens Nebula
Where it is: 1,300 light-years away, in the constellation Serpens
When it was shared: Aug. 12, 2024
Why it’s so unique: This is a brand-new picture of an old favorite, the Serpens Nebula, where a cloud of gas and dust is illuminated by starlight. Utilizing its infrared abilities, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) now exposes the source of that light: newborn stars.
The location to search in this image, taken with JWST’s Near Infrared Camera, is the top-left corner. The bright-red streaks are jets of gas from newborn stars smacking into the surrounding gas and dust, producing shock waves. Most importantly, they all slant in the exact same instructions
That’s crucial since it supplies proof for the theory that when clouds of dust and gas collapse to form stars, all of those stars spin in the very same instructions. The problem is, before JWST was around to observe in the infrared– to pierce thick clouds of dust and gas– it wasn’t possible to see newborn stars or their jets in optical wavelengths, so it was difficult to verify that theory.
Related: 35 jaw-dropping James Webb Space Telescope images
“Astronomers have actually long presumed that as clouds collapse to form stars, the stars will tend to spin in the exact same instructions,’ stated Klaus Pontoppidanprimary detective at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “However, this has actually not been seen so straight in the past. These lined up, extended structures are a historic record of the basic manner in which stars are born.”
Serpens is a reflection nebula, a cloud of gas and dust that does not develop its own light however shows light from stars near or within it. All traces of color you see in this image– as filaments and wisps– are shown starlight from newborn stars. Orange represents where dust remains in front of the shown light.
The Serpens Nebula has to do with 1 million to 2 million years of ages– exceptionally young in cosmic terms. This star-forming area is home to a thick cluster of newborn stars that are a simple 100,000 years of ages, which show up at the center of the image.
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