Birds of a feather, we should stick together A binary pair of actively forming stars is responsible for this shimmering hourglass of gas and dust. Here, NASAWebb’s ability to see near-infrared light reveals incredible detail and structure in Lynds 483 (L483). The two protostars lie in the center of the hourglass shape, ejecting gas and dust. When more recent cosmic material clashes with old, the varying densities cause the shimmering twists and twirls you see in this image. There are black “voids” where stars don’t shine through (particularly to the left of the bottom part of the hourglass)—this is where dust is so thick that little starlight penetrates. Even Webb, which is designed to see through dust and gas, only perceives the background stars as dim pinpoints of light. Above and below the flattened disk at the center, the dust is thinner and the bright light from the stars shines through, forming the large semi-transparent orange cones that glow around the outline of the hourgla...