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fullscreen Detail of the James Webb Telescope image of the Serpentine Nebula, showing a field of young stars. Press photo. Photo: Nasa/Esa/Csa/Leah Hustak
A new image from the high-tech James Webb telescope shows for the first time how massive streams of gas flow in the same direction in connection with the birth of stars, writes the US space agency Nasa.
The image depicts the young Serpentine Nebula, 1,300 light years from Earth.
The so-called jets, in the left part of the image above, are gas that flows out of newly formed stars and collides with other gas and space dust. In the picture, you can see how fluxes from several stars go in the same direction – an important detail for astronomers.
“Astronomers have long assumed that when (gas) clouds collapse and form stars, the stars will spin in the same direction. But it’s something we haven’t been able to see this clearly before,” says Nasa researcher Klaus Pontoppidan to the agency’s website.
Stars form when gravity pulls together interstellar gas clouds rich in space dust, collapsing in on themselves. In connection with this, they spew out some of the gas.