This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope continues to reveal hidden parts of the cosmos with its advanced suite of infrared instruments. In a newly released image, Webb revealed many stars previously hidden by the dust clouds of NGC 7129, a stellar nursery about 3,300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cepheus.
The image is already improving our understanding of how new stars are born and evolve with time. The life cycle of stars begins in dense molecular clouds of cold dust and gas, otherwise known as nebulae. Within these cocoons, the gas and dust slowly coalesce and build up mass, eventually triggering gravitational collapse and the birth of a new star.
Because of the dusty environment, young stars are often impossible to see with telescopes that cannot capture infrared light. Thanks to Webb's sensitivity to the near- and mid-infrared parts of the spectrum, astronomers could peek inside NGC 7129 and see many stars less than 1 million years old. Over 130 stars have been identified in this cluster.
They are in different stages of development based on their mass, with the more massive stars evolving faster and exiting their main sequence sooner. The most massive and mature is the region's central star, LkH(alpha) 234, a pre-main-sequence star of about 5 to 8 solar masses. As the name suggests, stars at this stage have largely finished gathering mass and begin fusing hydrogen in their interiors shortly thereafter.
This raises their temperatures, warming the surrounding gas and dust and illuminating it enough for astronomers to see inside. In the image above, hot atomic hydrogen gas appears in the golden region to the left. Cooler gas, shocked by outflows from embedded protostars, appears in red to the right, with smaller clouds lingering in the upper left.
Outflows triggered by LkH(alpha) 234's birth also created the cavity visible on the left side of the image. The shock of these outflows largely dispersed the hydrogen gas but also compressed regions, causing more stars to form within the cavity. Several of these stars are also pre-main-sequence and emit stellar winds, creating nearby bow shocks that lead to other smaller cavities.
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