A magical shot. The James Webb Space Telescope on Wednesday (Nov. 16) revealed glowing new images of a large hourglass-shaped cloud of dust surrounding a forming star known as “Protostar L1527” and located in the constellation Taurus.

Countdown to a new star ⏳

Hidden in the neck of this “clock” of light is the beginning of a new star – a protostar. Clouds of dust and gas within this region are visible only in infrared light, a wavelength in which Web specializes: https://t.co/DtazblATMW pic.twitter.com/aGEEBO9BB8

— NASA Web Telescope (@NASAWebb) November 16, 2022

In the image, we see this very young star (only 100,000 years old) hidden in the darkness at the edge of the rotating disk of gas at the level of the neck of the hourglass. But light from this protostar “leaks” above and below this disk, illuminating cavities in the surrounding gas and dust, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) explained in a joint statement. “This view of L1527 provides a window into what our early sun and solar system looked like”They specify.

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Clouds are created when material ejected from a star collides with surrounding material. Dust is finer in blue areas and coarser in orange areas. Hitherto hidden, these orange and blue clouds were made visible by the telescope’s NIRCam instrument, which operates in the infrared, a wavelength invisible to the human eye.