NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope takes a deep dive into The Cosmic Cliffs, one of the first images it captured. This gaseous cavity located within the star cluster NGC 3324 has details that remain hidden at visible-light wavelengths, but Webb was designed to detect jets and outflows seen only in the infrared at high resolution.
By studying data at a specific wavelength of infrared light (4.7 microns), astronomers found two dozen previously unknown outflows from extremely young stars revealed by molecular hydrogen. The discoveries include a gallery of objects ranging from small fountains to burbling gargantuan objects that extend light-years from the forming stars. The latter are protostars that are poised to become low mass stars, like our Sun.
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What Webb gives us is a snapshot in time to see just how much star formation is going on in what may be a more typical corner of the universe that we haven’t been able to see before. Jets like these are signposts for the most exciting part of the star formation process. We only see them during a brief window of time when the protostar is actively accreting,” said Nathan Smith, co-author of the study and Megan Reiter, astronomer from Rice University in Houston, Texas.
