©NASA
Spitzer Space Telescope image a new star


It's always exciting to see an idea in theory verified with real observations. For the first time, astronomers have observed a theoretical stage in stellar evolution, when a star's envelope is beginning to flatten and collapse, and streams of gas are escaping out. New observations by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have spotted a young star right at this stage, blasting out material in powerful jets.

The new research will be published in the December 1st edition of Astrophysical Journal Letters. It provides observational evidence to this specific stage in the currently accepted model of stellar evolution.

Researchers from several universities observed a newly forming star called L1157, located about 800 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus. The star is only 10,000 years old, and still has a million years or so to go before it ignites as a star like our Sun.