No, don’t worry, I won’t be talking about Judy Garland or Lady Gaga, but about one of our favorite gadgets, James Webb, our new eyes in space, now sharing the spotlight with those of the veteran and ever-beloved Hubble, which has allowed us to see the universe for decades and, more importantly, for our simple pleasure, revolutionized the history of astronomy. throughout his 33 years of service (and counting). Now, fortunately for us and the scientific community, both space telescopes allow us to see far beyond the eye’s reach.

how do you remember It’s been a little over four months now because after completing the long and complex process of commissioning the James Webb, we were finally able to observe (with open mouths, at least in my case) the first final images captured by the telescope. And yes, I say final, because NASA has shared some previous images before, but those corresponded to performance tests and calibration of the various instruments that make them up.

Since then and despite the incidents James Webb is working at full capacity. In fact, its work schedule is overcrowded because it’s the way its managers ensure that if, for some reason not attributable to the telescope, a scheduled task can’t be completed, James Webb doesn’t sit idle. , thus wasting the time allocated to said task in scheduling.

Of the images we have been able to see so far, the most iconic image is undoubtedly The Pillars of Creation, which was captured by Hubble back in 1995 and which, with James Webb’s modern instruments, they are even more spectacular. And it is because, in addition to its beauty, it is considered an important source of star formation. If you don’t know his story, I highly recommend you read our colleague Juan’s article, which I linked in this very paragraph.

Well, if The Pillars of Creation is going to show us the “source” of stars, the latest footage released by NASA takes us out of the woods and into one of the trees. And that’s it what James Webb captured and we are witnessing is the birth of a star. More specifically, we see a protostar in the dark cloud L1527. We’re talking about a pretty young star, as L1527 is only about 100,000 years old. To make a detailed comparison, we need to remember that the Sun is about 4.6 billion years old.

Protostar is the earliest stage of star formation. At this stage, they are not yet producing energy through nuclear hydrogen fusion, it is shrouded in a thick, dark layer of dust and gas, and it will have a long way to go before it reaches the state necessary to be considered a star. Therefore, thanks to this new capture of James Webb, the scientific community will be able to significantly advance the knowledge of the process of star formation.

Image: NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI. Image processing: J. DePasquale, A. Pagan and A. Koekemoer (STScI)