An international team of astronomers used the mid-infrared camera MIRI onboard the James Webb Space Telescope to capture a stunning photograph of a molecular cloud called L1527.
Sci News reports that L1527 is a molecular cloud surrounding a protostar called IRAS 04368+2557. The image shows scattered blue light and thread-like structures. They are composed of organic compounds known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
The red color at the center of the image represents the thick, charged layer of gas and dust surrounding the protostar. The area between them, shown in white, is a mixture of organic matter, ionized gas and other molecules.
The molecular cloud L1527 is also known to scientists as LDN 1527. It is located about 447 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Taurus. Inside the cloud is a young protostar, and the cloud itself is one of the components of the star formation mechanism in the constellation Taurus.
Researchers estimate the age of the protostar IRAS 04368+2557 to be only 100 thousand years, i.e. by cosmic standards it is an infancy. It is considered a class 0 protostar, in the early stages of star formation.
“The image of IRAS 04368+2557 shows an edge-on disk with two mismatched parts,” the researchers write. “The inner and outer parts of the disk have slightly different orbital planes, connected at a distance of 40-60 astronomical units from the protostar, but the disk has point symmetry with respect to the protostar’s position.”
Filamentous structures are responsible for the molecular cloud’s hourglass shape, as they energize or excite the surrounding matter and cause the areas above and below it to glow.
“The blue-colored regions covering most of the hourglass are mostly carbon molecules,” the scientists report. “The protostar IRAS 04368+2557 itself, as well as the dense shell of dust and gas mixtures surrounding it, are depicted in red. color.”
