Do you notice that the bright red, lumpy lines are all slanted in the same direction and at the same angle, indicating aligned protostellar outflows, or jets of gas from newborn stars? This region is part of the Serpens Nebula, located 1,300 light years from Earth. This nebula, which is quite young on a cosmic scale, is only 1-2 million years old. At the centre of the image is a dense cluster of newborn stars, about 100,000 years old.

Astronomers have long assumed that in the process of clouds collapsing to form stars, these stars would tend to rotate in the same direction. However, this phenomenon has never been observed so clearly before. These elongated aligned structures provide an important historical record of the birth of stars. Previously, these objects appeared only as specks or were not visible at optical wavelengths. Webb's sensitive infrared imaging capability can pierce through thick dust clouds to reveal stars and their outflows in detail.

What do you see when you look at this image?