By Dean Murray

Astronomers have captured a cosmic butterfly.

New images from the James Webb Space Telescope show a jaw-dropping view of a planet-forming disc, nicknamed the "Butterfly Star," appearing to have wings.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has hailed the pictures as a "fantastic new view" of IRAS 04302+2247, located about 525 light-years away in a dark cloud within the Taurus star-forming region.

They said: "With Webb, researchers can study the properties and growth of dust grains within protoplanetary discs like this one, shedding light on the earliest stages of planet formation."

Observations of distant protoplanetary discs can help researchers understand what took place roughly 4.5 billion years ago in our own solar system , when the Sun , Earth , and the other

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