Herbig-Haro Jet HH 24
Acknowledgment: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)/Hubble-Europe (ESA) Collaboration, D. Padgett (GSFC), T. Megeath (University of Toledo), and B. Reipurth (University of Hawaii). Credit: NASA and ESA. Release Images
This is an artist's concept of the fireworks that accompany the birth
of a star. The young stellar object is encircled by a pancake-shaped
disk of dust and gas left over from the collapse of the nebula that
formed the star. Gas falls onto the newly forming star and is heated to
the point that some of it escapes along the star's spin axis.
Intertwined by magnetic fields, the bipolar jets blast into space at
over 100,000 miles per hour. As seen from far away, they resemble a
double-bladed lightsaber from the Star Wars film series. Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI)
Just about anything is possible in our remarkable universe, and it often
competes with the imaginings of science fiction writers and filmmakers.
Hubble's latest contribution is a striking photo of what looks like a
double-bladed lightsaber straight out of the Star Wars films. In the
center of the image, partially obscured by a dark, Jedi-like cloak of dust,
a newborn star shoots twin jets out into space as a sort of birth
announcement to the universe. Gas from a surrounding disk rains down onto
the dust-obscured protostar and engorges it. The material is superheated
and shoots outward from the star in opposite directions along an uncluttered
escape route — the star's rotation axis. Much more energetic than a science
fiction lightsaber, these narrow energetic beams are blasting across space
at over 100,000 miles per hour. This celestial lightsaber does not lie in
a galaxy far, far away but rather inside our home galaxy, the Milky Way.
Just in time for the release of the movie "Star Wars Episode VII: The
Force Awakens," NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has photographed what
looks like a cosmic, double-bladed lightsaber.
In the center of the image, partially obscured by a dark, Jedi-like
cloak of dust, a newborn star shoots twin jets out into space as a sort
of birth announcement to the universe.
"Science fiction has been an inspiration to generations of scientists
and engineers, and the film series Star Wars is no exception," said
John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for NASA's Science
Mission Directorate. “There is no stronger case for the motivational
power of real science than the discoveries that come from the Hubble
Space Telescope as it unravels the mysteries of the universe."
This celestial lightsaber does not lie in a galaxy far, far away, but
rather inside our home galaxy, the Milky Way. It's inside a turbulent
birthing ground for new stars known as the Orion B molecular cloud
complex, located 1,350 light-years away.
When stars form within giant clouds of cool molecular hydrogen, some
of the surrounding material collapses under gravity to form a rotating,
flattened disk encircling the newborn star.
Though planets will later congeal in the disk, at this early stage
the protostar is feeding on the disk with a Jabba-like appetite. Gas
from the disk rains down onto the protostar and engorges it.
Superheated material spills away and is shot outward from the star in
opposite directions along an uncluttered escape route — the star's
rotation axis.
Shock fronts develop along the jets and heat the surrounding gas to
thousands of degrees Fahrenheit. The jets collide with the surrounding
gas and dust and clear vast spaces, like a stream of water plowing into a
hill of sand. The shock fronts form tangled, knotted clumps of
nebulosity and are collectively known as Herbig-Haro (HH) objects. The
prominent HH object shown in this image is HH 24.
Just to the right of the cloaked star, a couple of bright points are
young stars peeking through and showing off their own faint lightsabers
— including one that has bored a tunnel through the cloud towards the
upper-right side of the picture.
Overall, just a handful of HH jets have been spotted in this region
in visible light, and about the same number in the infrared. Hubble's
observations for this image were performed in infrared light, which
enabled the telescope to peer through the gas and dust cocooning the
newly forming stars and capture a clear view of the HH objects.
These young stellar jets are ideal targets for NASA's upcoming James
Webb Space Telescope, which will have even greater infrared wavelength
vision to see deeper into the dust surrounding newly forming stars.
Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland
410-338-4514
villard@stsci.edu
Mathias Jäger
ESA/Hubble, Garching, Germany
011-49-176-6239-7500
mjaeger@partner.eso.org
Deborah Padgett
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
deborah.l.padgett@nasa.gov
Bo Reipurth (available only after Jan. 8, 2016)
University of Hawaii, Hilo, Hawaii
reipurth@ifa.hawaii.edu
Tom Megeath
University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio
megeath@physics.utoledo.edu
