The light in these extraordinary images has travelled so far that it has taken 4,200 years to get here.

But, despite the distance, scientists say the photographs reveal, like no others before them, the immense forces unleashed when a star is born.

The two images were taken 18 years apart, the first with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico in 1996 and the second by an international team of astronomers led by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) last year.

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‹ Slide me › Astronomers have used a telescope in New Mexico to watch a star take shape over eight years. This simulation shows how the outflow of material from the star has dramatically expanded as it takes shape. A simulated image from 1996 is on the left, and another from 2014 is on the right

The star – known as W75N(B)-VLA2 – is 300 times brighter and eight times bigger than our sun, although it is masked by a black cloud of space dust.

But what has most excited astronomers is the change in shape of the violet area of super-hot electrified winds that are being ejected by the young star.

The dramatic changes, in a cosmic blink of an eye relative to the age of the universe, is giving an unprecedented look at how young ‘protostars’ develop into fully-fledged stars.

The pictures, created by data from 27 radio telescope antennae in the New Mexico desert in the U.S., show the electrified wind expanding away from the star until it is slowed by the black and yellow cloud of dust surrounding it.

‹ Slide me › These images of the star were taken by the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico. On the left is the star as seen in 1996, with its dust wrapped tightly around it, while by 2014 in the image on the right, this outflow has been pushed out into an elongated shape

This artist's illustration shows the development of W75N(B)-VLA-2. On the left, a hot wind from the young star expands nearly spherically, as seen in 1996. On the right right, as seen in 2014, the hot wind has been shaped by encountering a dusty, doughnut-shaped torus around the star and appears elongated

In the 1996 picture there is a relatively small region of space wind surrounding the star. But 18 years later that has expanded into a rugby-ball shape – because the dust has formed a doughnut shape around the star and offers less resistance to the space winds at its poles.

Astronomer Carlos Carrasco-Gonzalez of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said: ‘The comparison is remarkable.

‘We're seeing this dramatic change in real time, so this object is providing us an exciting opportunity to watch over the next few years as a very young star goes through the early stages of its formation.’

The team will now continue to observe the star and see how it develops over the next few years.

‘Our understanding of how massive young stars develop is much less complete than our understanding of how sun-like stars develop,’ Dr Carrasco-Gonzalez said.

‘It's going to be really great to be able to watch one as it changes. We expect to learn a lot from this object.'