The image reveals an outflow of hot gas from a newborn star — known as a Herbig-Haro object — situated about 625 light-years from Earth in the constellation Chamaeleon. This s

Webb's penetrating infrared gaze has now revealed the true identity of the glow as a face-on, distant spiral galaxy. It has a protruding central bulge, shown in blue, where older stars reside. The bulge also seems to have side lobes, suggesting that this could be a barred spiral galaxy like the Milky Way.

Herbig-Haro 49/50, aka the 'Cosmic Tornado', as seen by Spitzer in January 2006. The source of the 'tornado', a Class 1 protostar named CED 110 IRS4, is located beyond the right edge of the image. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/J. Bally (University of Colorado))