Herbig-Haro Jet HH 24. Credit: NASA and ESA
Just in time for the release of the movie “Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens,” NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has photographed what looks like a cosmic, double-bladed lightsaber. In the center of the image, partially obscured by a dark, Jedi-like cloak of dust, a newborn star shoots twin jets out into space as a sort of birth announcement to the universe. It does not lie in a galaxy far, far away, but inside our Milky Way. It’s inside a turbulent birthing ground for new stars known as the Orion B molecular cloud complex,1,350 light-years away.
When stars form within giant clouds of cool molecular hydrogen, some of the surrounding material collapses under gravity to form a rotating, flattened disk encircling the newborn star...
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