James Webb Space Telescope celebrates Independence Day by showcasing dazzling 'cosmic fireworks' 460 light-years away

To mark Independence Day, NASA has released a James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) image showing the frenzied eruption of a young star in vibrant red, white and blue.

The cosmic pyrotechnics come from the nebula L1527, which is located 460 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. 

Similar in shape to an hourglass or a butterfly's wings, the image shows a 100,000-year-old baby star roaring to life inside a gas cloud. Rotating in place, the star is consuming material around its sides while expelling it in vast jets from either pole. 

"This fiery hourglass marks the scene of a very young object in the process of becoming a star," NASA wrote in a statement. "A central protostar grows in the neck of the hourglass, accumulating material from a thin protoplanetary disk, seen edge-on as a dark line."

Related: James Webb Space Telescope captures star going supernova in a dazzling cloud of dust

Stars can take tens of millions of years to form — growing from billowing clouds of turbulent dust and gas to gently glowing protostars, before developing into gigantic orbs of fusion-powered plasma.

As stars sputter into life, they fling out material in the form of winds and jets of ionized plasma in a process known as stellar feedback.