How can infrared light see through cosmic dust?
To study the formation of stars and planets,
astronomers look at the giant clouds
of molecular gas and dust where new stars are still
being born today.
But when we turn our most powerful tool, the Hubble Space
Telescope on these clouds, we see mostly shadow.
All that gas and dust cloaks the stars
blocking their light, but not all of their light.
Visible light, the kind we see with our eyes,
can get through but infrared light is different.
Its wavelength penetrates gas and dust.
The infrared detecting instruments
on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope
will capture infrared light as it emerges from the cloud,
creating images that look through the gas and dust
to reveal the warm bright objects within.
With Webb's help, we will be able to see
both the newly forming stars and the disks of debris
around them, that eventually coalesce into planets, where
it will even detect newborn planets cocooned
inside these disks.