Cosmic fireworks in time for the Fourth of July⁣ ⁣ A fiery hourglass marks this cosmic object that’s turning into a star. NASAWebb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument spotted this protostar 460 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus.⁣ ⁣ A protostar is a collection of interstellar gas and dust, whose gravitational pull is causing it to collapse on itself and form a star. This protostar is growing in the neck of the hourglass, accumulating material from a thin protoplanetary disk, seen edge-on here as a dark line.⁣ ⁣ Just in time for the Fourth of July, the protostar is decked out in red, white, and blue—adapted from Webb’s infrared vision. The more diffuse blue light and the filament-like structures in the image come from organic compounds known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), while the red at the center of this image is an energized, thick layer of gas and dust that surrounds the protostar. The region in between, which shows up in white, is a mixture of PAHs, ionized ga...