A stunning new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a young star called a protostar and the huge outflows of dust and gas that are thrown out as it consumes material from its surrounding cloud. This object has now been observed using two of Webb’s instruments: a previous version that was taken in the near-infrared with Webb’s NIRCam camera, and new data in the mid-infrared taken with Webb’s MIRI instrument.
Looking in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum allows researchers to see through clouds of dust that would be opaque in the visible light range, showing the interior structures of clouds like this one — named L1527. This image shows interior structures called filaments that are formed of compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and which are used to track star formation. In the glowing red center of the image is the hot gas and dust around the protostar, from which it is feeding to grow larger.
The NIRCam image looks very different because this wavelength shows mostly light that is reflected off the dust, while this new MIRI image shows the thickest pockets of dust. The MIRI image shows an area in white that is hard to see in the NIRCam image, which is a mixture of PAHs, ionized gas, and other material.
“The combination of analyses from both the near-infrared and mid-infrared views reveal the overall behavior of this system, including how the central protostar is affecting the surrounding region,” Webb scientists explain. “Other stars in Taurus, the star-forming region where L1527 resides, are forming just like this, which could lead to other molecular clouds being disrupted and either preventing new stars from forming or catalyzing their development.”
This beautiful sight won’t be around forever, though. Over time the protostar will continue to consume more material and push away the remnants of the molecular cloud it resides in. Then it will become a true star and will become visible in the visible light wavelength as well.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.