According to NASA scientists, the James Webb Space Telescope's 'extraordinary capabilities' have allowed scientists to witness the birth of a star for the first time.

The JWST telescope's ability to 'see' through the dust that shields the jets and outflows of forming stars sheds new light on the process and adds to the mounting evidence for a star that may eventually evolve into a new sun.

According to astronomer Megan Reiter, who co-authored the study outlining these new discoveries, 'it opens the door for what's going to be possible in terms of looking at these populations of newborn stars in fairly typical environments of the universe that have been invisible up to the James Webb Space Telescope.' 

Now that we know where to search, we can investigate the factors that are crucial for the development of stars similar to the sun.

She and her coworkers were able to recognise the jets of forming stars and found 24 additional outflows and 15 possible protostars. One of those jets shot cosmic material into the sky at a distance of a young star. According to the study, jets are only active for a brief period, between a few thousand and ten thousand years during the multi-million-year process of a star's creation. 

When one of the researchers, John Morse from the California Institute of Technology, examined photographs using various JSWT filters, he commented, 'It's like uncovering hidden treasure.'

According to the NASA press release, 'when newborn stars acquire material from the gas and dust surrounding them, most also eject a fraction of that material back out again from their polar regions in jets and outflows.' 'These jets then behave like snowploughs, pushing into the surroundings.'

Images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope 16 years ago now have new significance thanks to the finding. Outflows were seen in Hubble photos captured in the visible spectrum, although they were completely obscured by dust. The Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) of the telescope can see through atmospheric dust to reveal areas of the universe that visible-light telescopes like the Hubble couldn't see.

 Scientists can trace the direction and speed of the cosmic spew by comparing newly acquired images with the known outflow images and new images with applied filters. The data, according to scientists, may help them understand how our sun began and how radiation from other stars affected the birth of planets like Earth.