#herbig-haro object

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Forming Stellar Duo

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Stellar Jet in Orion

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Stellar Jet

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Youthful Quintet

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Young Star Jet

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This image shows Sharpless 239 (Sh2-239 or LBN 821, right), a reflection nebula surrounded by LDN 1551, a dark star forming cloud of gas and dust. Sh2-239 is a distinct nebula in which stars have been forming for quite some time. It contains two clusters of highly embedded very young stars as well as many stars that are more evolved. The many outflows are visible as bright red knots and jets, particularly in the cavity at the center-top of the image. Just below it are the broader, brighter wings of HH 102, one of the region’s many Herbig-Haro objects.

Herbig–Haro objects (HH) – after astronomers George Herbig and Guillermo Haro – are narrow jets of gas and matter ejected by young stars at speeds of 100 to 1000 kilometers per second that collide with the surrounding nebula, producing bright shock fronts that glow as the gas is heated by friction while the surrounding gas is excited by the high-energy radiation of nearby hot stars. They are ubiquitous in star-forming regions, and several are often seen around a single star. The stellar jets seem to form as the swirling cloud of dust and gas surrounding a new star escapes.

Credit: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage) and H. Schweiker (WIYN and NOAO/AURA/NSF)