Anne Verdi retweetledi

#PPOD: Peeking into Perseus
This stunning new mosaic of images from @NASAWebb 🛰️ showcases the nearby star-forming ✨ cluster #NGC1333. The #nebula is located in the Perseus molecular cloud ☁️, approximately 960 light-years away.
The center of the image presents a deep peek into the heart of the NGC 1333 cloud. Across the image, we see large patches of orange, which represent gas glowing in the infrared. These so-called Herbig-Haro objects form when ionized material ejected from young stars collides with the surrounding cloud. They are hallmarks of a very active site of star formation.
Many of the young stars in this image are surrounded by discs of gas and dust, which may eventually produce planetary systems. On the right-hand side of the image, we can glimpse the shadow of one of these discs oriented edge-on — two dark cones emanating from opposite sides, seen against a bright background.
Similarly to the young stars in this mosaic, our Sun and planets formed inside a dusty molecular cloud 4.6 billion years ago. Our Sun didn’t form in isolation but as part of a cluster, which was perhaps even more massive than NGC 1333. The cluster in the mosaic, only 1–3 million years old, presents us with an opportunity to study stars like our Sun, brown dwarfs, and free-floating planets in their nascent stages.
Credit: @esa @NASA & @csa_asc, A. Scholz, K. Muzic, A. Langeveld, R. Jayawardhana

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