Hubble Movies Provide Unprecedented View of Supersonic Jets From Young Stars

Hubble Movies Provide Unprecedented View of Supersonic Jets From Young Stars

The glowing, clumpy streams of material shown in these NASA Hubble Space Telescope images are the signposts of star birth. Called Herbig-Haro or HH objects, these outflows speed along at over 440,000 miles an hour. When they "rear-end" slower gas, bow shocks (the blue features) arise as the material heats up. In HH 2 (lower right) several bow shocks (the compact blue and white features) occur where fast-moving clumps bunch up. In HH 34 (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 (top) a long jet of material has burst out of a dark cloud of gas and dust that hides the newly forming star. Credit: NASA/ESA/P. Hartigan (Rice University)