NASA: Red, white, and blue fireworks are created by a protostar

As part of NASA’s ongoing mission to explore the cosmos, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) released a stunning image on Thursday showing an incredible display of brilliant red, white and blue fireworks erupting in the sky.

“Rocket’s red glare” can be attributed to the violent eruption of an infant star at the core of the cloud of blue and white gas and dust that birthed it, a cloud that is actually the result of this cloud erupting from its former home. In this case, we are referring to the nebula L1527. In the constellation Taurus, it lies around 460 light-years from Earth and is located nearly 460 light-years away from it.

Located at the center of the nebula is a glowing protostar that resembles a cosmic butterfly, and astronomers estimate that it is approximately 100,000 years old. If that seems ancient to you, it should be kept in mind that our star, the Sun, and the solar system around it have been around for more than 4.5 billion years.

As a matter of fact, the stellar object that is at the center of this nebula is far from being a real star yet, as it is still in the process of being formed. In these cosmic fireworks, the process of transforming the protostar into a main sequence star, such as the Sun, is characterized by the processes that are taking place.

As a result of extreme concentrations of molecular particles that are overexposed to gravity, they gradually gather more and more mass, until eventually they collapse under their own gravitational pull. A protostar is then formed, which at the time of its birth is made of gas and dust left over from the molecular cloud that created it. A protostar is then able to collect matter from this postnatal cloud of gas and dust.

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