NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has caught a stunning image of a newly forming star whizzing across space in a spectacular burst of light.
The newly forming star, also called a "protostar," is known as FS Tau B, Knewz.com has learned.
A star is born! Welcome to the cosmos, FS Tau B!
NASA proclaimed the birth of the newly forming star along with a proud photo on X, tweeting, “Welcome to the cosmic lightshow! This new Hubble view shows the star system FS Tau. The bright object near the middle is FS Tau A, and the one to the far right (hidden by a dark lane of dust) is a newly forming star, FS Tau B.”
FS Tau is a multi-star system made up of FS Tau A and FS Tau B, also known as Haro 6-5B, NASA reported. FS Tau B is surrounded by a protoplanetary disk, which is a pancake-shaped collection of dust and gas leftover from the formation of the star, which NASA says will eventually coalesce into planets. The dust is believed to separate what are thought to be the illuminated surfaces of the flared disk.
Space.com reported that FS Tau is 450 light years from Earth and is part of the Taurus-Auriga region. This region of space houses a nursery of dark clouds of gas and dust, or "molecular clouds," that are home to numerous newly forming protostars and young stars.
According to NASA this nursery system is only about 2.8 million years old. The sun, by contrast, is about 4.6 billion years old.
FS Tau B is likely in the process of becoming a T Tauri star, a type of young variable star that hasn’t begun nuclear fusion yet but is beginning to evolve into a hydrogen-fueled star like the sun, NASA said.
For now, it’s simply a protostar and is gathering material from its surroundings. Once it has accumulated enough mass, the pressure at the heart of FS Tau B will be so great that hydrogen will start to undergo nuclear fusion to create helium in its stellar core – the nuclear process that defines the main sequence lifetime of a star, Space.com reported.
Because protostars are known to eject fast-moving, column-like streams of energized material called jets, the Hubble Telescope was able to capture this process with FS Tau B. It has an asymmetrical structure, which might be due to the difference in the rates at which mass is being expelled from the object.
NASA also noted that the Hubble telescope has previously observed the region, and that it took these observations as part of an investigation of “edge-on dust disks around young stellar objects.”
Over on X, people were wowed by NASA’s photograph.
Muhmmad Azhar tweeted, “What a breathtaking sight! These cosmic wonders remind us of the infinite beauty and complexity of the universe. Let’s marvel at these celestial creations while also pondering our role in preserving such awe-inspiring phenomena for generations to come. #StewardoftheCosmos"
And Daneil Smith tweeted, “Incredible! It's like peeking through the celestial curtains to witness the birth of a new star. Keep the cosmic revelations coming, Hubble! #Starstruck."
