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NASA’s Hubble Views a Cosmic Skyrocket
Herbig-Haro 110 is a geyser of hot gas from a newborn star that splashes up against and ricochets off the dense core of a cloud of molecular hydrogen. This Hubble Space Telescope photo shows the integrated light from plumes, which are light-years across.
Herbig-Haro (HH) objects come in a wide array of shapes, but the basic configuration stays the same. Twin jets of heated gas, ejected in opposite directions away from a forming star, stream through interstellar space. Astronomers suspect that these outflows are fueled by gas accreting onto a young star surrounded by a disk of dust and gas. The disk is the "fuel tank," the star is the gravitational engine, and the jets are the exhaust.
When these energetic jets slam into colder gas, the gas within the shock front slows to a crawl, but more gas continues to pile up as the jet keeps slamming into the shock from behind. Temperatures climb sharply, and this curving, flared region starts to glow. These "bow shocks" are so named because they resemble the waves that form at the front of a boat.
In the case of the single HH 110 jet, astronomers observe a spectacular and unusual permutation on this basic model. Careful study has repeatedly failed to find the source star driving HH 110, and there may be good reason for this: perhaps the HH 110 outflow is itself generated by another jet.
Astronomers now believe that the nearby HH 270 jet grazes an immovable obstacle – a much denser, colder cloud core – and gets diverted off at about a 60-degree angle. The jet goes dark and then reemerges, having reinvented itself as HH 110.
The jet shows that these energetic flows are like the erratic outbursts from a Roman candle. As fast-moving blobs of gas catch up and collide with slower blobs, new shocks arise along the jet's interior. The light emitted from excited gas in these hot blue ridges marks the boundaries of these interior collisions. By measuring the current velocity and positions of different blobs and hot ridges along the chain within the jet, astronomers can effectively "rewind" the outflow, extrapolating the blobs back to the moment when they were emitted. This technique can be used to gain insight into the source star's history of mass accretion.
This image is a composite of data taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2004 and 2005 and the Wide Field Camera 3 in April 2011.
About the Object
- R.A. PositionR.A. PositionRight ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position.05h 51m 24.91s
- Dec. PositionDec. PositionDeclination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position.02° 54' 51.84"
- ConstellationConstellationOne of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears.Orion
- DistanceDistanceThe physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs.1,300 light-years (400 parsecs)
About the Data
- Data DescriptionData DescriptionProposal: A description of the observations, their scientific justification, and the links to the data available in the science archive.
Science Team: The astronomers who planned the observations and analyzed the data. "PI" refers to the Principal Investigator. - InstrumentInstrumentThe science instrument used to produce the data.HST>ACS/WFC, HST>WFC3/UVIS, and HST>WFC3/IR
- Exposure DatesExposure DatesThe date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time.January 21, 2004 and April 25, 2011, Exposure Time: 2.6 hours
- FiltersFiltersThe camera filters that were used in the science observations.WFC3/IR F110W (J), and F160W (H), ACS/WFC F658N (H-alpha), and WFC3/UVIS F814W (I)
- Object NameObject NameA name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.HH 110
- Object DescriptionObject DescriptionThe type of astronomical object.Herbig-Haro Object
- Release DateJuly 3, 2012
- Science ReleaseNASA’s Hubble Views a Cosmic Skyrocket
- CreditsNASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Project
This image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by the ACS and WFC3 instruments. Several filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue: F814W (I) Cyan: F658N (H-alpha) Green: F110W (J) Red: F160W (H)
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Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
