In 1996, astronomers snapped a shot of W75N(B)-VLA 2, a protostar about 4,200 light years from Earth. Then, three years ago, they did the same. What they caught in the intervening 18 years was the extremely slow process of a massive star being born. Even at this young age, its already 300 times brighter than the sun.

The formation of a massive star is a chaotic and violent event. As dust coalesces in a ring around the protostar’s gravity well, it forms a barrier of sorts that funnels jets of ionic gases out the ring’s holes. Over the 18 years witnessed so far, those fiery winds have grown from a small bolus into a tremendous expanding oval that appears to be as tall as the dust ring is wide.