NASA's Webb Snaps Supersonic Outflow of Young Star

If we could take a baby picture of our Sun, it might look something like this. 👶

Seen in this Webb image is a newborn star with supersonic jets of gas spewing from its poles. It’s only a few tens of thousands of years old here, but when it grows up, it’ll be much like our Sun.

Bright regions around newborn stars, as seen here, are called Herbig-Haro objects. This specific Herbig-Haro object is called Herbig-Haro (HH) 211. At roughly 1,000 light-years away from Earth, it’s one of the youngest and nearest objects of its type.

Herbig-Haro objects are created when jets of gas from these newborn stars form shockwaves as they collide with surrounding gas and dust. Webb’s sensitive infrared vision can pierce through the gas and dust, picking up on the heat emissions from the star’s outflows and mapping out structure in unprecedented detail. Interestingly, Webb observations have also shown that the outflows from this object are slower in comparison to that of more developed baby stars. Learn more: go.nasa.gov/3Pb0xOg

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, T. Ray (Dublin)

More about this image: The image showcases a series of bow shocks to the southeast (lower-left) and northwest (upper-right) as well as the narrow bipolar jet that powers them in unprecedented detail. Molecules excited by the turbulent conditions, including molecular hydrogen, carbon monoxide and silicon monoxide, emit infrared light, collected by Webb, that map out the structure of the outflows.

Image description: At the center is a thin horizontal pinkish cloud known as Herbig-Haro 211 that is uneven with rounded ends, and tilted from bottom left to top right. It takes up about two-thirds of the length of this angle, but is thinner and longer at the opposite angle. At its center is a dark spot. On either side of the dark spot, there are orangish yellow wisps that extend to light blue wisps. Within the center of those clouds, a pink fluffy streak runs through each lobe. At the ends of each lobe, pink becomes the dominant color. The lobe to the left is fatter. The right lobe is thinner, and ends in a smaller pink semi-circle. Just off the edge of this lobe is a slightly smaller pink semicircle, then a pink sponge-like blog. The background contains several bright stars, each with eight diffraction spikes extending out from the central bright point.

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Taken on: September 14, 2023

Tags:

JWST

NASA

Haro

Star

Space

Webb

Astronomy

James

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Sets appears in: • Webb Images/Science 2023

Stats: 743,330 views / 29 comments

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