[imagesource: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI]

“A star nursery” conjures up such an adorable image of baby stars yawning and stretching into existence, doesn’t it?

In actuality, young stars are relatively turbulent.

We can see that now thanks to a new image captured by the miraculous James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Since going operational in July, the JWST has shown us the eerie tendrils of the Tarantula Nebula, the Phantom Galaxy, the Cartwheel Galaxy, and plenty of other fun stuff.

The latest showcase is of the Orion Nebula, a star nursery located 1 350 light-years from Earth in the Orion constellation, now revealed in incredible detail.

Scientists are fascinated by this region of space since it shares a similar environment to that in which our solar system was formed over 4,5 billion years ago.

The team of more than 100 scientists across 18 countries started the project of capturing and studying the Orion Nebula in 2017, and are “blown away by the breathtaking images” that the JWST produced for their research, per Business Insider:

“These new observations allow us to better understand how massive stars transform the gas and dust cloud in which they are born,” [said astrophysicist Els Peeters of Western University in Canada].

The efforts to study the heart of the star nursery and star births in the Orion Nebula had previously been dependent on images from the Hubble Telescope (one is also seen in the image up top), which came out largely shrouded in stardust:

Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, PDRs4All ERS Team; image processing Olivier Berné. Credit for the HST / Image: NASA/STScI/Rice Univ./C.O’Dell et al. – Program ID: PRC95-45a.

Since the JWST takes photos in infrared light, researchers are able to see through the dust clouds, revealing structures within the nebula at scales similar to the size of our solar system:

Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Data reduction and analysis: PDRs4All ERS Team; graphical processing S. Fuenmayor

The massive belt of gas and dust, which appears brownish-yellow, is the Orion Bar, per Gizmodo.

The bright star in its centre is the θ2 Orionis A, which, if you’re in a dark enough spot on Earth, can be seen with the naked eye:

Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, PDRs4All ERS Team

The hot, young stars are mostly gathered toward the upper right corner, collectively known as the Trapezium Cluster. Their ultraviolet radiation is slowly eroding the Orion Bar.

Here’s Olivier Berné, a researcher with the French National Center for Scientific research:

“We clearly see several dense filaments. These filamentary structures may promote a new generation of stars in the deeper regions of the cloud of dust and gas. Stellar systems already in formation show up as well,” said Berné.

“Inside its cocoon, young stars with a disk of dust and gas in which planets form are observed in the nebula. Small cavities dug by new stars being blown by the intense radiation and stellar winds of newborn stars are also clearly visible,” he added.

Bergin confirmed that the image shows the cycle where the first generation of stars is “essentially irradiating the material for the next generation”.

Observing these structures will detail “how the feedback cycle of stellar birth occurs in our galaxy and beyond”.

Exciting stuff.

[sources:businessinsider&gizmodo]