NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the infrared light of numerous features that previously were impossible to see beyond the thick dust of the FS Tau star system. In addition to myriad background galaxies that burst into view like fireworks for the United States’ 250th anniversary celebrations, this image flickers with a number of protostars, or baby stars that are formed from dense pockets of gas and dust. These hot, clumpy, and low-mass objects eventually will become full-fledged stars capable of burning hydrogen in their cores, like our Sun. The protostars of FS Tau are about 1 to 3 million years old, which is relatively young in cosmic scales. Our Sun, by contrast, is 4.6 billion years old.
Low-mass stars emit less radiation and have less energetic stellar winds than those with larger masses, which means they disrupt their environment at a much lower level. This makes the FS Tau region incredibly useful for studying low-mass star evolution without the same level of environmental interference seen near higher-mass stars. A pair of protostars that creates the largest diffraction pattern seen slightly to the left of center in the image, called FS Tau A, is about half the mass of our Sun.
In infrared light, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals bright prot …