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James Webb Space Telescope learns how a cosmic phoenix cools off to birth stars

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A purple blob (the same image as header) that shows were the cooling gas is located, as seen by the JWST, and where the jet inflated bubbles are inflated, as seen by other telescopes. Both are in the middle of the purple blob, but the bubbles region is slightly lower.

How do you cool down a phoenix? I don’t mean the mythological birds of flame and rebirth, but rather a cosmic namesake with a fittingly fiery nature. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers may finally have the answer. They used the powerful instrument to investigate the extreme cooling of gas in the Phoenix … Read more

This baby exoplanet is made of different stuff than its birth cloud

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Planets can differ from the swirling envelopes of gas and dust from which they are born, astronomers have found. The revelation seems to indicate that the planet formation model favored by scientists may be overly simple. A team led by researchers from Northwestern University in Illinois made this discovery while observing a still-forming planet and … Read more