Webb Captures Image of Newborn Star in Beautiful Hourglass Nebula

Just hours after launching Artemis 1, the first mission of the Artemis program that will carry humanity back to the Moon, NASA released a new stunning image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. This photo shows a protostar forming inside a colorful hourglass-shaped nebula.

L1527, a reflection nebula surrounding a newly formed protostar. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI. Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI), and Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI).

In one of the most beautiful images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, the newborn star in L1527 can be seen inside a massive hourglass-shaped nebula. This star is not yet burning hydrogen into helium in its core, a process known as nuclear fusion. Stars in this stage of development are known as protostars.

During the protostar phase of development, these young stars gather up the gas and dust in the nebulae that form them, growing themselves and leaving leftover matter that may turn into planets as the star forms. The dark line in the middle of the nebula forming this protostar is the edge of a protoplanetary disk, the disk of material from the nebula being pulled into the star as it grows. This will also be the disk responsible for forming any of the planets that may orbit L1527’s protostar in the future.

Nebula L1527 is being lit up by the star itself, which illuminates the gas and dust like a flashlight. This type of nebula is known as a reflection nebula because it reflects the light of its…