TWO RAYS OF light shoot out from a newborn star, piercing space at over 100,000 miles an hour.

It sounds like a scene from Star Wars, as Nasa couldn’t resist pointing out during the week when it cleverly released these photos to coincide with the latest installment of the film series.

The two lightsaber-like streams crossing this image are jets of energised gas, ejected from the poles of a young star. Source: ESA/Hubble/NASA

“Perfectly timed for the release of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, the Nasa/ESA Hubble Space telescope has imaged a cosmic double-bladed lightsaber,” the space agency said in a statement.

In the centre of the image, partially obscured by a dark Jedi-like cloak of dust, an adolescent star shoots twin jets out into space, demonstrating the fearsome forces of the universe.

The rays of light are spewing out from a newly-formed star obscured from view, cloaked by swirling dust and gas. Source: ESA/Hubble/NASA

The lightsaber lies not in a galaxy far, far away, but within our own, the Milky Way, in a turbulent breeding ground for new stars over 1,350 light years away.

And it has a blast “stronger than one from a fully armed and operational Death Star battle station”, Nasa said.

Around the cloaked star are smaller points of bright light: other young stars peeping through to show their own faint lightsabers. Source: NESA/Hubble/NASA

Impressive.

Read: The 12 most compelling scientific reasons that suggest aliens are real

Quiz: Can you tell if these photos are from Mars or Earth?