Webb reveals the secrets of Herbig-Haro 211 (HH 211) in the constellation Perseus. <\/p>
The James Webb Space Telescope<\/a> has captured a spectacular image of energetic jets erupting from a newborn star 1,000 lightyears away.<\/p> The image shows jets of gas hurtling away from the star, colliding with nearby cosmic gas and producing shockwaves.<\/p> The object in question is Herbig-Haro 211 (HH 211), found in the constellation Perseus.<\/p> It is one of the youngest and nearest known protostellar outflows.<\/p> Herbig Haro objects are luminous regions found around newborn stars, generated when stellar winds (streams of charged particles) or jets of gas flow outwards at supersonic speeds.<\/p> The star is a Class 0 protostar, which means it is similar to what our Sun was like when it was just a few tens of thousands of years old.<\/p> It has a mass around 8% of our present-day Sun, but will eventually grow into a star similar to the Sun.<\/p> The Webb Telescope observes the cosmos in infrared<\/a>, making it well-suited for studying newborn stars.<\/p> This is because very young stars are still surrounded by the cosmic dust out of which they were born.<\/p> Optical light would not be able to penetrate this dust, but Webb’s infrared vision can, getting a better look at the star’s outflows.<\/p> Webb has picked up a sort of symmetrical ‘wiggle’ seen in both jets, which could mean the young protostar is actually a binary star<\/a>.<\/p> The team behind this new study found that the innermost outflow is moving at speeds of around 80 – 100 km per second.<\/p>What is a Herbig-Haro object?<\/strong><\/h2>
The science behind the image<\/strong><\/h2>