Hubble captures child star’s ‘tantrum’

An energetic outburst from a young star crosses this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This stellar ‘tantrum’ consists of a jet of glowing gas at supersonic speed.

As the jet collides with material surrounding the still-forming star, the collision heats this material and causes it to glow. The result is the faint, colorful structures, which astronomers refer to as Herbig-Haro objects, that ripple in the lower right of this image, NASA reports.

Herbig-Haro objects have been observed to evolve and change significantly within a few years. This particular object, called HH34, was previously captured by Hubble between 1994 and 2007, and again in glorious detail in 2015. HH34 resides approximately 1,250 light-years from Earth in the Orion Nebula, a large visible star-forming region. naked eye. The Orion Nebula is one of the closest sites to Earth where stars form, and as such has been closely studied by astronomers for information on how stars and planetary systems are born.

The data in this image comes from a set of Hubble Wide Field Camera 3 observations of four nearby bright jets taken to help pave the way for future science with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.

Observing at predominantly infrared wavelengths, Webb will be able to observe the dusty envelopes surrounding forming protostars, revolutionizing the study of jets from these young stars. Hubble’s high-resolution images of HH34 and other jets will help astronomers interpret future Webb observations.