Welcome back.
NASA has released a stunning new image of the birth of a star.
It was taken by the James Webb telescope on its one year anniversary.
The web's detailed close up shows a cloud complex that's 390 light years from earth where criss crossing jets of gas and dust from young sun like stars hit gas causing what you see there that incredible glow.
Let's bring in NASA astrophysicist and the senior project scientist for the James Webb telescope, Dr Jane Rigby, Dr Rigby.
Great to have you today.
This is so interesting.
So can you explain to us first how the star began forming and what the image tells us about stars?
Sure.
So this is the closest place in our own galaxy to us where stars are forming, right?
So this is the, this is a nursery, this is a set of about 50 baby stars and newly born stars.
That one in the bottom right is already formed.
It's lit up and it's actually lighting up its own uh stellar nursery.
So it's like lighting up the room where it was born.
And so we see here this gorgeous we're learning from images like this, how stars like our own sun were formed.
Yeah, the photos that we've been getting from the telescope have just been incredible walk us through.
Why the James Webb telescope is able to get these pictures that we really haven't seen before.
What's different about this telescope than the others?
Sure.
So the Web telescope works.
Um First of all, it's working fantastically.
Its images are about twice as sharp as we planned And it is uh an infrared telescope so it can see what is invisible to Hubble.
It can see through the dust and gas and the smoke filled parts of the universe and can get at places where stars are forming and can also see very far back in time to the first billion years of the universe's history when Galaxies were brand new.
And so in the very nearby universe like this, we're seeing how stars are forming today and what those processes look look like.
And then we're also peering back over 13 billion years of time to see how those processes were working in the very young universe.
And to see both how has it worked today?
And then what was the story early in the universe and what's been changing with time?
Yeah.
And we're showing just beside you, some of the photos tell us about this last year.
You say that it's been performing fantastically.
I mean, what have we been learning?
What are we learning new about space as a result of this telescope?
Great question.
So in images like this, you can actually see uh in that top there, you you you can see these um uh you're seeing these disks that are forming around the star.
This is where we think planets are forming.
So part of the story of web of what we're seeing is how stars form, how planets form and how Galaxies form.
And that's really the story of us, right?
That's the story of how we got here.
We live in a galaxy, we live on a planet, we go around a star.
What web is giving us?
That's new is a perspective that is sharper, that is clearer, that sees further back in time, that sees the parts of the universe that have just been invisible to us.
Because if you look with your eyes or even with Hubble at this part of the sky, all you see is black, you can't see any of this.
It's just too hidden by dust, but Webb sees right through the dust and sees where the action is where the stars are forming.
So from the nearest planets of in our own solar system uh to the to way out in time and space we're seeing.
How does all this work from your perspective?
Do the sharper pictures, do the discoveries from the telescope help sort of build enthusiasm perhaps for space?
What do you think?
So uh I will say that, you know, it's funny because we look at like the image that, that was released today and it's really gorgeous.
And so there's a scientific appreciation.
Oh we're learning more about how planets form and we're learning about, you know, we can geek out all you want, but it's also really beautiful.
And I gotta say that for those of us who do this for a living, we geek out about the images too like we kind of we, 00 what's the new one?
And we, we crowd in and take a look because the universe is such a beautiful place and that appreciation is part of the fun and absolutely, we're, it's showing us what's been out there this whole time.