00:00NGC 346, a star cluster that lies within a nebula, is located 210,000 light-years away.
00:09It resides within the small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy close to our Milky Way.
00:15New findings from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope reveal the presence of a much more
00:20intricate network of gas and dust structures than previously discovered in the area.
00:25Within this plume of gas is cold molecular hydrogen, which provides a perfect environment
00:31for young stars to form, some of which can be seen here. These young stars generate energy
00:37that heats the gas, energizing and splitting the molecular hydrogen. This effectively carves
00:43rough ridges into the gas. This area appears to show the head of a dragon spitting out balls of
00:50hot gas. Its eye and the balls of gas are areas of active star formation, which will continue to
00:57change the environment around it. These wisps are more evidence of that environmental change.
01:03Winds from nearby stars are blowing away material that surrounds still forming stars,
01:08leaving these small structures behind. Here we see curly ribbons of glowing gas that outline the cold
01:16molecular gas of the region. These many pillars of creation show how pervasive the stellar erosion
01:22is in the region. Eventually, over millions of years, the mixture of energized and dense hydrogen
01:28will give way to thousands of stars and far more of these filamentary structures.
Comments