Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

Hubble captures the dramatic jets of a baby star

By

A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows the drama that unfolds as a new star is born. Within a swirling cloud of dust and gas, a newly formed star is giving off powerful jets that blast away material and cut through the nearby dust of the surrounding nebula to create this stunning vista.

The image shows a system called FS Tau, located 450 light-years away in a region called Taurus-Auriga. Within this region are many stellar nurseries with new stars forming, making it a favorite target for astronomers studying star formation. But this particular system stands out for the dramatic nature of its newborn star, which has formed an epic structure called a Herbig-Haro object.

FS Tau is a multi-star system made up of FS Tau A, the bright star-like object near the middle of the image, and FS Tau B (Haro 6-5B), the bright object to the far right that is partially obscured by a dark, vertical lane of dust. The young objects are surrounded by softly illuminated gas and dust of this stellar nursery. The system is only about 2.8 million years old, very young for a star system. Our Sun, by contrast, is about 4.6 billion years old.
FS Tau is a multi-star system made up of FS Tau A, the bright star-like object near the middle of the image, and FS Tau B (Haro 6-5B), the bright object to the far right that is partially obscured by a dark, vertical lane of dust. The young objects are surrounded by the softly illuminated gas and dust of this stellar nursery. The system is only about 2.8 million years old, very young for a star system. Our sun, by contrast, is about 4.6 billion years old. NASA, ESA, K. Stapelfeldt (NASA JPL), G. Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

A Herbig-Haro object is the structure created by jets of material coming from a young star. A star forms from clouds of dust and gas when this material clumps together to form a small knot. Over time, this knot attracts more and more material due to gravity, until it eventually collapses to form a core and becomes a protostar. As the protostar is dense, it attracts even more material due to gravity, growing over time and getting hotter as the material rubs together, creating friction. However, the star isn’t yet creating its own heat via fusion, so it isn’t yet a main sequence star like our sun.

Related

The growing protostar can still become very hot though, with heat generated by the collapsing of the dust cloud and the gradual accretion of matter. This heat gives the protostar enough energy to shine, even though it isn’t creating its own heat and light from fusion yet. And with this energy, the protostar can eject two superfast jets of matter, each coming from the opposite direction. These jets of gas move so quickly that they collide with nearby dust and gas to create illumination — and it’s these jets that define a Herbig-Haro object.

The object FS Tau is unusual in that the protostar is giving off an asymmetrical double-sided jet, thought to be because matter is being expelled at different rates. It is also a binary system, with the Herbig-Haro object FS Tau B making up one half of a pair of stars along with FS Tau A, the bright object near the center of this image.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
Hubble catches a baby star pulsating in a triple star system
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image captures a triple-star star system.

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a triple-star star system. NASA, ESA, G. Duchene (Universite de Grenoble I); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

A gorgeous new image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a triple star system, where three stars are working in tandem to create a reflection nebula. The trio of stars are located 550 light-years away, and include one particular star, HP Tau, that is like a younger version of our sun and will eventually grow up to be a similar hydrogen-fueled star in millions of years' time.

Read more
Dark Energy Camera captures the gorgeous ‘God’s Hand’ globule
This cloudy, ominous structure is CG 4, a cometary globule nicknamed ‘God’s Hand’. CG 4 is one of many cometary globules present within the Milky Way, and how these objects get their distinct form is still a matter of debate among astronomers. This image was captured by the Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, a Program of NSF NOIRLab. In it, the features that classify CG 4 as a cometary globule are hard to miss. Its dusty head and long, faint tail vaguely resemble the appearance of a comet, though they have nothing in common. Astronomers theorize that cometary globules get their structure from the stellar winds of nearby hot, massive stars.

This cloudy, ominous structure is CG 4, a cometary globule nicknamed ‘God’s Hand’. CG 4 is one of many cometary globules present within the Milky Way, and how these objects get their distinct form is still a matter of debate among astronomers.  CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA Image Processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), D. de Martin & M. Zamani (NSF’s NOIRLab)

A stunning new image from the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) shows the glowing structures of the Gum Nebula illuminated by the hot, massive stars studded throughout this cloud of dust and gas. Located 1,300 light-years away in the constellation of Puppis, this image highlights an unusually shaped structure in the nebula that looks like a hand reaching out into space. Nicknamed "God's Hand," the structure is a type of object called a cometary globule.

Read more
James Webb captures the edge of the beautiful Horsehead Nebula
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to date of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies, the Horsehead Nebula. These observations show a part of the iconic nebula in a whole new light, capturing its complexity with unprecedented spatial resolution. Webb’s new images show part of the sky in the constellation Orion (The Hunter), in the western side of the Orion B molecular cloud. Rising from turbulent waves of dust and gas is the Horsehead Nebula, otherwise known as Barnard 33, which resides roughly 1300 light-years away.

A new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows the sharpest infrared view to date of a portion of the famous Horsehead Nebula, an iconic cloud of dust and gas that's also known as Barnard 33 and is located around 1,300 light-years away.

The Horsehead Nebula is part of a large cloud of molecular gas called Orion B, which is a busy star-forming region where many young stars are being born. This nebula  formed from a collapsing cloud of material that is illuminated by a bright, hot star located nearby. The image shows the very top part of the nebula, catching the section that forms the "horse's mane."

Read more