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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.

HH-47 Star Jet

Explanation: The star masked by a dust cloud at the left of the above photo is expelling an energetic beam of charged particles into interstellar space. This jet , moving from left to right, has burrowed through much interstellar material, and now expands out into the interstellar space. Although jet particles move at nearly three hundred kilometers per second , we still do not see any daily movement because of the enormous distances involved. In fact, the jet is trillions of kilometers long. This stellar jet occurs in a system called HH-47 which is located near the edge of the Gum Nebula.

Date October 12, 1995
Credit Credit: NASA, HST, WFPC 2, J. Morse
Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.