Exploring the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex Star-forming Region | Webb Telescope

Exploring the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex Star-forming Region | Webb Telescope

Space Sparks Episode 11: To celebrate its first year of science, a new Webb image has been released of a small star-forming region in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. 

The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex is the closest star-forming region to Earth. It is a relatively small, quiet stellar nursery, but you would never know it from Webb’s chaotic close-up. Jets bursting from young stars crisscross the image, impacting the surrounding interstellar gas and lighting up molecular hydrogen, shown in red. Some stars display the telltale shadow of a circumstellar disc, the makings of future planetary systems.

The young stars at the center of many of these discs are similar in mass to the Sun or smaller. The heftiest in this image is the star S1, which appears amid a glowing cave it is carving out with its stellar winds in the lower half of the image. The lighter-colored gas surrounding S1 consists of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a family of carbon-based molecules that are among the most common compounds found in space.

Webb is an international partnership between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)

Editing: Nico Bartmann   

Web and technical support: Enciso Systems   

Written by: Bethany Downer   

Footage and photos: ESA, NASA, CSA, STScI, K. Pontoppidan (STScI), A. Pagan (STScI), N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb)

Duration: 1 minute, 55 seconds

Release Date: July 12, 2023

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