Free Astronomy Magazine January-February 2023

36 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2023 ASTRO PUBLISHING dust, the less blue light is able to es- cape, creating pockets of orange. Webb also reveals filaments of mo- lecular hydrogen that have been shocked as the protostar ejects ma- terial away from it. Shocks and tur- bulence inhibit the formation of new stars, which would otherwise form all throughout the cloud. As a result, the protostar dominates the space, taking much of the material for itself. Despite the chaos that L1527 causes, it’s only about 100,000 years old - a relatively young body. Given its age and its brightness in far-infrared light as observed by missions like the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, L1527 is considered a class 0 proto- star, the earliest stage of star forma- tion. Protostars like these, which are still cocooned in a dark cloud of dust and gas, have a long way to go be- fore they become full-fledged stars. L1527 doesn’t generate its own en- ergy through nuclear fusion of hy- drogen yet, an essential character- istic of stars. Its shape, while mostly spherical, is also unstable, taking the form of a small, hot, and puffy clump of gas somewhere between 20 and 40% the mass of our Sun. As the protostar continues to gather mass, its core gradually compresses and gets closer to stable nuclear fu- sion. The scene shown in this image reveals L1527 doing just that. The surrounding molecular cloud is made up of dense dust and gas being drawn to the center, where the protostar resides. As the mate- rial falls in, it spirals around the cen- ter. This creates a dense disk of material, known as an accretion disk, which feeds material to the protostar. As it gains more mass and compresses further, the tempera- ture of its core will rise, eventually reaching the threshold for nuclear fusion to begin. The disk, seen in the image as a dark band in front of the bright center, is about the size of our solar system. Given the density, it’s not unusual for much of this material to clump together - the beginnings of plan- ets. Ultimately, this view of L1527 provides a window into what our Sun and solar system looked like in their infancy. by NASA/ESA/CSA Matthew Brown Christine Pulliam A new view of the dark cloud L1527 N ASA’s James Webb Space Tele- scope has revealed the once- hidden features of the proto- star within the dark cloud L1527, providing insight into the begin- nings of a new star. These blazing clouds within the Taurus star-form- ing region are only visible in in- frared light, making it an ideal target for Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). The protostar itself is hidden from view within the “neck” of this hour- glass shape. An edge-on protoplan- etary disk is seen as a dark line across the middle of the neck. Light from the protostar leaks above and below this disk, illuminating cavities within the surrounding gas and dust. The region’s most prevalent fea- tures, the clouds colored blue and orange in this representative-color infrared image, outline cavities cre- ated as material shoots away from the protostar and collides with sur- rounding matter. The colors them- selves are due to layers of dust between Webb and the clouds. The blue areas are where the dust is thinnest. The thicker the layer of !