{"id":393862,"date":"2026-01-27T21:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T21:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/393862\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T21:59:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T21:59:10","slug":"nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-finds-crystal-spewing-protostar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/393862\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope Finds Crystal-Spewing Protostar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope captured the actively forming protostar EC 53 (circled at left) in the Serpens Nebula in this image released on Jan. 21, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Astronomers have long sought evidence to explain why\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/solar-system\/comets\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">comets<\/a>\u00a0at the outskirts of our own\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/webb\/science-overview\/science-explainers\/exploring-our-solar-system-with-webb\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">solar system<\/a>\u00a0contain crystalline silicates, since crystals require intense heat to form and these \u201cdirty snowballs\u201d spend most of their time in the ultracold\u00a0Kuiper Belt\u00a0and\u00a0Oort Cloud. Now, looking outside our solar system, Webb has returned the first conclusive evidence that links how those conditions are possible.<\/p>\n<p>The telescope clearly showed for the first time that the hot, inner part of the disk of gas and dust surrounding a very young, actively forming star is where crystalline silicates are forged. Webb also revealed a strong outflow that is capable of carrying the crystals to the outer edges of this disk. Compared to our own fully formed, mostly dust-cleared solar system, the crystals would be forming approximately between the Sun and Earth.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/missions\/webb\/nasa-webb-finds-young-sun-like-star-forging-spewing-common-crystals\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Read more about this discovery.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (NASA-JPL), Joel Green (STScI); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope captured the actively forming protostar EC 53 (circled&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[141886,90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-393862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-protostars","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-space","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}