Webb Telescope Spots Two Protostars Locked in a Violent, Million-Year Battle

The universe can be a beautiful but violent place. A new image from the Webb space telescope captures an epic battle between two stars as they launch jets of material toward one another, creating a vigorous scene of colliding gas and dust that will last for roughly one million more years.

Using Webb’s near-infrared camera (NIRCam), scientists imaged two actively forming stars that make up Lynds 483 (L483), capturing the massive outburst of material from the stellar pair in high resolution. The two stars have been launching column-like jets at each other for tens of thousands of years, and the shimmering ejections shine in beautiful orange, blue, and purple colors.

L483 is located 650 light-years away in the constellation Serpens. The image is bursting with incredible detail, revealing how the material interacts with itself, slowing down or speeding up, and forming different shapes that stretch out across the cosmos.

The two protostars can be seen at the center of the hourglass shape, they’re both still in their formation phase. It will take them millions of years to finish forming and end up around the same mass as our Sun, according to a Webb statement. By that time, the outbursts will have subsided, likely leaving behind a tiny disk of gas and dust from which planets may form.

For now, the two stars are exchanging fast, tight jets of material. As newer ejections collide with older ones, the material will crumple and twirl based on the density of the outbursts. The exchange of material has also resulted in chemical reactions that have produced a range of molecules, like carbon monoxide, methanol, and several other organic compounds, according to the statement.

Some of the jets end up twisted or warped, as seen with the orange arc in the top right edge of the image. This is the result of the ejected material being slowed down by existing, denser material, creating a shock front.

There’s a lot going on in the image, creating a beautiful medley of colors and light. If you were viewing this from space, however, it wouldn’t exactly look like that. The colors of the image are the result of using different filters to sample specific wavelength ranges, and then assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with a different filter.

Since launching in December 2021, Webb has wowed us with stunning photos of the universe. Most recently, the space telescope captured an edge-on protoplanetary disk with extreme precision.