JAKARTA – The James Webb Space Telescope has just captured a pair of young stars that are actively forming themselves, known as Herbig-Haro 46/47.
The star was captured by the Webb Telescope in high-resolution near-infrared light (NIRCam) images, which are 1470 light-years away in the constellation Vela.
To find the young star pair, scientists traced the bright pink and red diffraction spikes in the Webb Telescope’s images of the stars contained within the orange-white blotches.
They are buried deep in a disk of gas and dust that feeds on them while constantly adding mass to grow. Although the disk is not visible, its shadow can be seen in the two dark conical regions surrounding the central star.
A pair of actively forming stars has been sending jets in both directions for thousands of years. Herbig-Haro 46/47, has been studied by many ground and space telescopes since the 1950s.
However, the Webb Telescope is the first to capture it in high resolution in its NIRCam. The most striking detail is the spreading double-sided lobe of the actively forming central star, represented in fiery orange.
Most of this material was shot out of the stars as they repeatedly engulfed and ejected the gas and dust that immediately surrounded them for thousands of years.
When material from the newer ejection meets older material, it changes the shape of the lobe. The activity was like a great fountain that turned on and off rapidly, but in quick succession, causing billowing patterns in the pool below.
Some jets delivered more material and others were launched at high speed. Likelihood is related to how much matter is falling onto the star at a given point in time.
More recent ejections of stars appear threadlike blue. They pass directly under the red diagonal diffraction spikes, these bursts make the wavy pattern more pronounced.
All of these jets are critical to the star formation process itself. Meanwhile, ejection regulates how much mass stars eventually collect, as quoted from ESA’s official website, Saturday, July 29.
The edges of the nebula appear in soft orange lines, like an inverted L along the right and bottom of the image. The existence of a nebula is quite important, because it affects the shape of the beam fired by the central star.
As ejected material hits the nebula on the lower left, there is more opportunity for the jets to interact with molecules within the nebula, causing them to ignite.
Over millions of years, the stars in Herbig-Haro 46/47 will have fully formed, clearing the scene of this fantastically colorful cast and the binary stars can take center stage against a galaxy-strewn backdrop.
The Webb telescope was able to reveal so much detail in Herbig-Haro 46/47 for two reasons. The object is relatively close to Earth, and the image in a telescope consists of multiple exposures that add depth to it.
Tag: nasa technology stars astronomy
2023-07-29 10:15:00
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