James Webb Captures Butterfly-shaped Nebula Sculpted By Chaotic Young Stars – The Daily Galaxy –Great Discoveries Channel
The James Webb Space Telescope has unveiled a stunning butterfly-shaped nebula, sculpted by the chaotic forces of two young stars. But hidden within its intricate structure lies a twisted magnetic field that may hold the key to understanding how stars like our Sun are born. What secrets does LBN 483 reveal?The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured a breathtaking image of Lynds Bright Nebula 483 (LBN 483), a butterfly-shaped nebula located 650 light-years away. But this stunning cosmic hourglass is no serene spectacle—its intricate structure is the result of two young stars locked in a chaotic dance of creation and destruction.Stars form when a molecular gas cloud gravitationally collapses, pulling in material from its surroundings. However, instead of consuming all this material, young stars also eject jets and outflows of gas and dust. These ejections create shock waves as they collide with existing interstellar material, gradually shaping a nebula’s structure. LBN 483 is a prime example of this process. The bipolar outflows from the two forming stars have carved the nebula into its distinctive hourglass or butterfly-like shape.The nebula’s bright lobes and dark regions are a direct result of light from the protostars piercing through gaps in the dense surrounding dust. The dark areas mark regions where dust completely blocks the starlight.At the core of LBN 483, two protostars are growing together. One of them was only identified in 2022 by a team led by Erin Cox of Northwestern University using data from ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) in Chile. These two young stars are currently separated by 34 astronomical units (AU), which is about 3.2 billion miles (5.1 billion km)—slightly farther than Neptune’s distance from the Sun.The interaction between these two stars is crucial to the nebula’s structure. Scientists believe they were originally farther apart, but one migrated closer, disrupting the surrounding angular momentum and influencing the formation of twisting outflows.The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured an extraordinary image of Lynds Bright Nebula 483 (LBN 483), a butterfly-shaped nebula located 650 light-years away. This stunning structure is formed by two young protostars, whose violent outflows of gas and dust have sculpted the nebula’s shape. Observations from ALMA have detected polarized radio waves from cold dust within the nebula, indicating the presence of a twisted magnetic field. This field runs parallel to the outflows but remains perpendicular to the infalling material, playing a key role in shaping LBN 483. At a distance of 1,000 AU (93 billion miles / 150 billion km), the field exhibits a 45-degree counterclockwise twist, likely caused by the gravitational interactions of the binary system.Unlike massive star-forming regions such as the Orion Nebula, LBN 483 is an isolated stellar nursery, providing a unique case study of star formation without external interference.Unlike massive stellar nurseries such as the Orion Nebula, which contain thousands of forming stars, LBN 483 appears to be isolated. This makes it a valuable research target, as astronomers can study how individual stars evolve without external interference.Comment Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
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