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Signatures of Star Birth
The glowing, clumpy streams of material shown in these NASA Hubble Space Telescope images are the signposts of star birth.
Ejected episodically by young stars like salvos from a cannon, the blobby material zips along at more than 440,000 miles (770,000 kilometers) an hour. Called Herbig-Haro or HH objects, these speedy outflows have a bumpy ride through space.
When fast-moving blobs "rear-end" slower gas, bow shocks (the blue features) arise as the material heats up. Bow shocks are glowing waves of matter similar to waves produced by the bow of a ship plowing through water. In HH 2, at lower right, several bow shocks (the compact blue and white features) can be seen where fast-moving clumps bunch up like cars in a traffic jam. In HH 34, at lower left, a grouping of merged bow shocks reveals regions that brighten and fade over time as the heated material cools, shown in red, where the shocks intersect.
In HH 47, at top, a long jet of material has burst out of a dark cloud of gas and dust that hides the newly forming star. The blue, fan-shaped region at left is the edge of a cavity illuminated by the fledgling star. A massive clump of jet material collides with upstream gas, creating the white bow-shaped shock wave at right.
These images are part of a series of time-lapse movies astronomers have made showing the outflows' motion over time. The movies were stitched together from images taken over a 14-year period by Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. Hubble followed the jets over three epochs. Observations of HH 2 were made from 1994, 1997, and 2007; HH 34 from 1994, 1998, and 2007; and HH 47 from 1994, 1999, and 2008.
The outflows are roughly 1,350 light-years from Earth. HH 34 and HH 2 reside near the Orion Nebula, in the northern sky. HH 47 is located in the southern constellation Vela.
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>WFPC2
- FiltersFiltersThe camera filters that were used in the science observations.F656N (H-alpha) and F673N ([S II])
- Object NameObject NameA name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.HH 47, HH 34, HH 2
- Object DescriptionObject DescriptionThe type of astronomical object.Herbig-Haro Objects
- Release DateAugust 31, 2011
- Science ReleaseHubble Movies Provide Unprecedented View of Supersonic Jets from Young Stars
- Credits
This image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by the WFPC2 instrument on HST. 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: Cyan: F656N (H-alpha) Orange: F673N ([S II])
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Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
