Wherever the JWST looks in space, matter and energy are interacting in spectacular displays. The Webb reveals more detail in these interactions than any other telescope because it can see through dense gas and dust that cloak many objects. In a new image, the JWST spots a young protostar only 100,000 years old.
The star is named L1527, and at this young age, it’s still ensconced in the molecular cloud that spawned it. This is one of the reasons NASA built the JWST (with help from the ESA and the CSA.) The telescope can see through dust and gas to reveal the earliest stages of star formation.
This image was captured with MIRI, the Mid-Infrared Instrument. The young protostar is at the heart of it all, and it’s still growing. It’s accumulating mass from the protoplanetary disk that surrounds it.
The disk is the tiny dark horizontal line at the image’s center. The protostar isn’t a main-sequence star, so it’s not undergoing fusion like the Sun is. There may be a small amount of deuterium fusion in its core, but it generates energy in a different way.
As the star’s gravitational power draws material nearer, the material is compressed and heats up. More energy comes from shockwaves generated by incoming material that collides with existing gas. This is the energy that lights up the star and its surroundings inside the giant molecular cloud that spawned it.
As young protostars accumulate mass, they generate powerful magnetic fields. Combined with the star’s rotation.
