Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have captured a new image of Herbig-Haro (HH) 46/47, a tightly bound pair of actively forming stars located in the constellation of Vela.
Herbig-Haro objects are small bright patches of nebulosity associated with newborn stars.
They are formed when hot gas ejected by a newborn star collides with the gas and dust around it at speeds of up to 250,000 kmh (155,000 mph), creating bright shock waves.
These objects come in a wide array of shapes, the basic configuration is usually the same: twin jets of heated gas, ejected in opposite directions from a forming star, stream through interstellar space.
Herbig-Haro objects are transient phenomena — they disappear into nothingness within a few tens of thousands of years.
These objects were first observed in the 19th century by the American astronomer Sherburne Wesley Burnham, but were not recognized as being a distinct type of emission nebula until the 1940s.
The first astronomers to study them in detail were George Herbig and Guillermo Haro, after whom they have been named.
The pair of such objects, HH 46/47, resides approximately 1,470 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Vela.
“The most striking details are the two-sided lobes that fan out from the actively forming central stars, represented in fiery orange,” Webb astronomers said.
“Much of this material was shot out from those stars as they repeatedly ingest and eject the gas and dust that immediately surround them over thousands of years.”
“When material from more recent ejections runs into older material, it changes the shape of these lobes.”
“This activity is like a large fountain being turned on and off in rapid, but random succession, leading to billowing patterns in the pool below it.”
“Some jets send out more material and others launch at faster speeds.”
“Why? It’s likely related to how much material fell onto the stars at a particular point in time,”…
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