Serpens Nebula (NIRCam) by NASA and Space

About "Serpens Nebula (NIRCam)"

by NASA and Space

About the artwork

In this image of the Serpens Nebula, captured by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers identified a cluster of aligned protostellar outflows in a small region (top left corner). These jets are represented by bright, clumpy red streaks, which are shockwaves caused by the jets colliding with surrounding gas and dust.

The Serpens Nebula, situated 1,300 light-years from Earth, hosts a particularly dense cluster of newly forming stars, approximately 100,000 years old. Some of these stars will eventually reach the mass of our Sun.

This region has also been the site of other notable discoveries, such as the flapping “Bat Shadow.” This phenomenon was named after 2020 data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope showed a shadow from a star’s planet-forming disk shifting or flapping. This feature is visible at the center of the Webb image.

To the right of the “Bat Shadow,” there is another fascinating feature—an eye-shaped crevice that appears as if a star is bursting through. However, astronomers caution that this might be an illusion caused by gases of different densities layered on top of one another, similar to the famous Pillars of Creation.

Further to the right, an extremely dark patch could be a similar phenomenon. The gas and dust in this area are so dense compared to the rest of the region that no near-infrared light can penetrate through.