Protostar Collection | Hubble Space Telescope

A Collection of Protostars | Hubble Space Telescope

A protostar is swathed in the gas of an emission nebula within star-forming region GAL-305.20+00.21.

Star-forming region G033.91+0.11 is home to a protostar hidden within a reflection nebula.

The Cepheus A region is home to a number of infant stars, including a protostar that is responsible for much of the region’s illumination.

A protostar’s jets of high-speed particles are responsible for the bright region of excited, glowing hydrogen in this Hubble image.

Newly developing stars shrouded in thick dust get their first baby pictures in these images from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble took these infant star snapshots in an effort to learn how massive stars form.

Protostars are shrouded in thick dust that blocks light, but Hubble can detect the near-infrared emission that shines through holes formed by the protostar’s jets of gas and dust. The radiating energy can provide information about these “outflow cavities,” like their structure, radiation fields, and dust content. Researchers look for connections between the properties of these young stars—like outflows, environment, mass, brightness—and their evolutionary stage to test massive star formation theories.

These images were taken as part of the SOFIA Massive (SOMA) Star Formation Survey that investigates how stars form, especially massive stars with more than eight times the mass of our Sun.

This Hubble image showcases the star-forming region GAL-305.20+00.21. The bright spot in the center-right of the image is an emission nebula, glowing gas that is ionized by a protostar buried within the larger complex of gas and dust clouds.

Glittering much closer to home, this Hubble image depicts the star-forming region G033.91+0.11 in our Milky Way galaxy. The light patch in the center of the image is a reflection nebula, where light from a hidden protostar bounces off gas and dust.

The high-mass star-forming region Cepheus A hosts a collection of baby stars, including one large and luminous protostar, accounting for about half of the region’s brightness. While much of the region is shrouded in opaque dust, light from hidden stars breaks through outflow cavities to illuminate and energize areas of gas and dust, creating pink and white nebulae. The pink area is an HII region, where the intense ultraviolet radiation of the nearby stars has converted the surrounding clouds of gas into glowing, ionized hydrogen. Cepheus A lies about 2,400 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus.

Shrouded in gas and dust, the massive protostar IRAS 20126+4104 lies within a high-mass star-forming region about 5,300 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. This actively forming star is a B-type protostar, characterized by its high luminosity, bluish-white color, and very high temperature. The bright region of ionized hydrogen at the center of the image is energized by jets emerging from the poles of the protostar, which ground-based observatories previously observed.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and R. Fedriani (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
Release Date: Jan. 17, 2026

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