Spectacular Collection of 400 Rings in ‘Reflection’ Cloud Resolves Three-Decade-Old Starbirth Puzzle – Featured Space Image

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Blended image of the star-forming zone NGC 1333 created by merging information from the 8.2 m Subaru Telescope and the Digitized Sky Survey. ESSENTIAL DATA

Its designation: Reflection nebula NGC 1333 and binary star arrangement SVS 13

Its locale: 1,000 light-years distant in the Perseus constellation

Its release date: Dec. 16, 2025.

Head outdoors following dusk this wintertime and peer toward the southeast, and you’ll spot some of the most radiant stars visible at night — Orion’s Belt, Betelgeuse, Sirius, Aldabaran and Capella. Directly above this gathering is the calmer constellation Perseus, which lacks prominent stars yet harbors something remarkable that the unaided eye cannot detect — the turbulent emergence of new stars.

Concealed within the Perseus Molecular Cloud is NGC 1333, dubbed the Embryo Nebula since it encompasses numerous youthful, intensely hot stars that are showing astronomers precisely what transpires when a star comes into being. NGC 1333 represents a reflection nebula, denoting a concentration of gas and particulate matter lit up by the powerful light originating from newly established stars, several of which seem to be consistently ejecting streams of material. It holds the distinction of being among the nearest star-forming zones in proximity to our solar system. On Dec. 16. astronomers disseminated the utmost in-depth visuals to date of a jet emitted by a nascent star, referred to as SVS 13, unveiling a sequence of interwoven, ring-resembling configurations. The finding lends credence to the notion that the star has undergone an outburst — discharging a considerable quantity of energy — for decades.

The finding, which the scientists detailed within the journal Nature Astronomy, signifies the initial firsthand observational validation of a longstanding theoretical framework delineating how nascent stars sustain themselves on, and subsequently forcefully discharge, surrounding matter.

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The investigators documented the high-definition, 3D perspective of a rapidly moving jet discharged from one of SVS 13’s young stars utilizing the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope system situated in Chile. Enclosed within the visual, they pinpointed upward of 400 ultra-slender, bow-contoured molecular rings. Echoing growth rings on trees that denote the progression of time, each ring chronicles the aftermath of an energetic surge from the young star’s nascent history. Remarkably, the most recent ring aligns with a conspicuous outburst perceived within the SVS 13 framework during the early 1990s, enabling investigators to correlate a specific episode of activity in a forming star directly with an alteration in the velocity of its jet. It’s postulated that abrupt spikes in jet activity stem from copious volumes of gas descending upon a young star.

“These visuals furnish us with a wholly novel means of deciphering a young star’s chronicle,” remarked study co-author Gary Fuller, an academician at the University of Manchester. “Every cluster of rings serves effectively as a time-stamp denoting a past eruption. It imparts upon us a significant fresh awareness of how young stars expand and how their evolving planetary frameworks take shape.”

To view more splendid space visuals, peruse our Space Image of the Week compilation.

TOPICSSpace image of the week

Jamie CarterSocietal Networks NavigationContributor for Live Science

Jamie Carter functions as a self-employed journalist and habitual Live Science benefactor operating out of Cardiff, U.K. He penned A Stargazing Program For Beginners and provides lectures addressing astronomy alongside the natural world. Jamie routinely contributes articles for Space.com, TechRadar.com, Forbes Science, BBC Wildlife magazine and Scientific American, among others. He oversees WhenIsTheNextEclipse.com.

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