(ORDO NEWS) — The NASA Space Telescope has taken an image of the protostar L1527, the ejecta from which form an hourglass shape.
The protostar is located in the closest star-forming region to Earth, about 460 light-years from our planet, in the Taurus molecular cloud.
However, the protostar at the center of the image is hidden from telescopes by a dense cloud of gas and dust, so the formation is only visible in infrared light, making it an excellent target for the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) aboard the James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST).
Protostar L1527 is a Class 0 protostar and is believed to be only about 100,000 years old. Thus, the space telescope captured the star at the very beginning of its formation.
Astronomers hope that studying the cosmic hourglass will help illuminate the processes taking place around the protostar.
The observations can also help explain how young stars reach maturity and how they grow and develop.
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