It’s an image of the Serpens Nebula, about 1,300 light-years away from Earth. Newly captured by JWST (James Webb Space Telescope), what is revealed is a very special phenomenon theorized upon for so long but never observed.
The subject is the Serpens Nebula, which lies about 1,300 light-years from Earth. And the new JWST image showcases a very special phenomenon long theorized to exist, but never before observed.
Some of the objects in the upper left area of the image are known as “protostellar outflows” or simply jets of gas erupting from newborn stars. While these outflows have been previously seen, we’ve never seen them line up with each other in the same direction as they do in the JWST image; NASA likens them to “sleet pouring down during a storm.”
We’re now able to catch these extremely young stars and their outflows, some of which previously appeared as just blobs or were completely invisible in optical wavelengths because of the thick dust surrounding them
Joel Green
This initial image is part of a series dedicated to exploring this stellar nursery further, with future plans to analyze its chemical composition using JWST’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph instrument.
