Newborn star tagged posts

Young star IRAS 14568-6304 is ejecting gas at supersonic speeds and eventually will have cleared a hole in the cloud ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgements: R. Sahai (Jet Propulsion Credit: Laboratory), S. Meunier

This young star is breaking out. Like a hatchling pecking through its shell, this particular stellar newborn is forcing its way out into the surrounding Universe. The golden veil of light cloaks a young stellar object, IRAS 14568-6304. It is ejecting gas at supersonic speeds and eventually will have cleared a hole in the cloud, allowing it to be easily visible to the outside Universe.

Stars are born deep in dense clouds of dust and gas. This particular cloud is known as the Circinus molecular cloud complex. It is 2280 light-years away and stretches across 180 light-years of space...

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...