NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Finds Crystal-Spewing Protostar

$A rectangular image of the Serpens Nebula with black vertical rectangles at the bottom left and top right to indicate missing data. A young star-forming region is filled with wispy orange, red, and blue layers of gas and dust. The upper left corner of the image is filled with mostly orange dust, and within that orange dust, there are several small red plumes of gas that extend from the top left to the bottom right at the same angle. At center-left is a larger star that is circled. This star has Webb’s signature diffraction spikes, but along the right also has an arc of white, with the circular edge starting at the center of the star. Mostly blue gas fills the center. There is a particularly bright central star. The gas to the right is a darker orange. Small points of light are sprinkled across the field. The brightest sources have extensive eight-pointed diffraction spikes.$

The NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s 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. Astronomers have long sought evidence to explain why comets at the outskirts of our own solar system contain crystalline silicates, since crystals require intense heat to form … Continue reading NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Finds Crystal-Spewing Protostar