The JWST Peers into the Heart of Star Formation there’s a lot more detail in the process and some outstanding questions. Stars don’t form in isolation; they usually form in clusters or groups, and there are intermingling magnetic fields at work. At only 1300 light-years away, Serpens Nebula is a good place to try to spy some of this detail. Until the JWST came along, the detail was hidden from even our most powerful telescopes, and astrophysicists were left to theorize with what they could observe. “Star formation is thought to be partly regulated by magnetic fields with coherence scales of a few parsecs – smaller than Giant Molecular Clouds, but larger than individual protostars,” the authors write in their paper. “Magnetic fields likely play a key role in the collapse of cloud cores distributed in elongated structures called filaments.” Cloud cores are the precursors to star clusters, and the filaments are filaments of gas inside giant molecular clouds. Cloud cores cluster along these filaments where the gas density is higher. Much of what goes inside these environments is shrouded by gas and dust, so theories were based on what astronomers were able to observe prior to the JWST. “While theory often assumes idealized alignment of protostellar disks, cores, and associated magnetic fields, feedback may lead to misalignment on the smallest scales (1000 au) as the protostar evolves,” the authors write. To understand what happens when protostars form in these environments, astrophysicists wanted to know if the angular momentum in a group of stars that form together correlates with each other and with the magnetic field of the filament they form in. Credits : In this image of the Serpens Nebula from the Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) on the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers found a grouping of aligned protostellar outflows within one small region (the top left corner). In the Webb image, these jets are identified by bright red clumpy streaks, which are shockwaves caused when the jet hits the surrounding gas and dust. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, K. Pontoppidan (NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory), J. Green (Space Telescope Science Institute) Music : Tunetank.com

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