James Webb Space Telescope Captures the Moment a Young Star Explodes
The James Webb Space Telescope, our most advanced telescope of all time, now reveals the explosion of a young star. Here are the details!
The James Webb Space Telescope is a modern miracle, peering deep into the universe and revealing light from thousands of light-years away. Over the past year and several months, the telescope has continued to amaze us with spectacular observations, the most recent of which once again demonstrates Webb’s ability to capture the explosions of young stars.
While studying a young protostar, Webb captured a beautiful and iconic image of the star releasing energy outward from itself. The jets of energy are made up of stellar material blasted outward from the poles of a very young star. Scientists estimate that these energy jets travel through space at supersonic speeds.
Webb scientists have named this event Herbig-Haro 211 (HH 211). The young star is located about 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Perseus. Although Webb’s observations of the young star don’t show the star itself, we can see its effects on the region around it, which absorbs gas and dust, allowing it to grow larger and larger.
The moment Herbig-Haro 211 (HH 211) exploded
James Webb has observed events like this many times during its observations of the universe. Earlier this year, the space telescope gave us our first look at starlight from ancient quasars, and it continues to help us unravel the mysteries of the early universe with every observation scientists make deep inside the universe.
This latest image of the young star emitting bursts of energy is both beautiful and a reminder of how exciting our universe is. Scientists believe that the young star Webb observed will eventually have more powerful energy and probably represents what our sun looked like when it was just a few tens of thousands of years old and had a tiny percentage of its current mass.
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