NASA scientists analyzed in detail and depth one of the first iconic images of the james webb telescope have discovered dozens of energetic jets and flows coming from young stars in the making that were previously hidden by clouds of dust.
The discovery by NASA marks the beginning of a new era in the investigation of how stars are formed like our Sun, and how radiation from nearby massive stars might affect the development of planets.
The cosmic cliffsa region on the edge of a gigantic gas cavity within the NGC 3324 star cluster, has long intrigued astronomers, who regard it as a hotbed for star formation.
Although NGC 3324 has been well studied by the Hubble Space Telescope, many details of star formation in this region remain hidden in visible light wavelengths.
Webb is perfectly suited to decipher these long-sought details, as it is designed to detect jets and flows seen only at high resolution in the infrared.
Webb’s capabilities also allow researchers to track the movement of other features previously captured by Hubble.
Recently, by analyzing data from a specific wavelength of infrared light (4.7 microns), astronomers discovered two dozen previously unknown outflows from extremely young stars that were revealed by molecular hydrogen.
Webb’s observations uncovered a gallery of objects ranging from small fountains to bubbling colossi, stretching light-years from the forming stars. Many of these protostars are on their way to becoming low-mass stars, like our Sun.
“What Webb gives us is a snapshot of a moment in time to see how much star formation is going on in what may be a more typical corner of the universe that we haven’t been able to see before,” said astronomer Megan Reiter of the University of of Rice in Houston, Texas, who led the study.
Molecular hydrogen is a vital ingredient for the creation of new stars and an excellent indicator of the early stages of their formation.
As young stars accumulate material from the gas and dust around them, most also eject a fraction of that material back in jets and flows from their polar regions.
These jets then act like a snowplow, digging up the surrounding environment. In Webb’s observations the molecular hydrogen that is swept up and excited by these jets is visible.
“Jet like these are signs of the most exciting part of the star formation process. We only see them for a short period of time, when the protostar is actively accreting,” explained Nathan Smith, co-author and researcher at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Previous observations of jets and flows have focused primarily on nearby regions and more evolved objects that are already detectable at the visible wavelengths observed by Hubble.
Webb’s unmatched sensitivity enables observations of more distant regions, while its infrared optimization probes into the youngest stages of dust sampling.
Taken together, this provides astronomers with an unprecedented view of environments that resemble the birthplace of our solar system.
“This opens the doors to what will be possible in terms of observing these populations of newborn stars in settings quite typical of the universe that have been invisible until the arrival of the James Webb Space Telescope,” Reiter added.
“We now know where we should look next to explore which variables are important for the formation of Sun-like stars.”
This very early star formation period is especially difficult to capture because, for each individual star, it is a relatively fleeting event: it only takes anywhere from a few thousand to 10,000 years in the midst of a multi-million year star formation process.
“Hints of this activity are seen in the image first released in July, but these jets are only visible when we embark on this deep dive: dissecting data from each of the different filters and looking at each area separately,” he said. Jon Morse, from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and a member of the team. “It’s like finding a hidden treasure.”
By analyzing Webb’s new observations, astronomers also gain insight into how active these star-forming regions are, even over a relatively short period of time.
By comparing the position of previously known outflows in this region, which were imaged by Webb, with archival Hubble data from 16 years ago, the scientists were able to track the speed and direction in which the jets are moving.
This scientific investigation was conducted on observations collected as part of the Webb First Observations Program. The scientific article was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in December 2022.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory.
Webb will solve the mysteries of our solar system, see beyond distant worlds around other stars, and explore the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it.
Webb is an international program run by NASA with its partners: the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
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