JWST shows surprising violence in a young star system’s birth | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | Feb, 2025

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posted on Feb. 17, 2025 at 3:38 pm

This composite JWST image of the object Herbig-Haro 30 in the Taurus Molecular Cloud shows many features common to young, massive stars: a dusty disk (seen edge-on here), reflective dust grains above and below the disk, bipolar jets running perpendicular to the central disk, and conical outflows dovetailing into tail-like ejecta. Inside, planets are suspected to be forming around the central young star. (Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, Tazaki et al.; Processing: E. Siegel)

A young, nearby, massive star, whose protoplanetary disk appears perfectly edge-on, was just viewed by JWST, with staggering implications.

Just 450 light-years away, new stars are being born.

This wide-field image only encapsulates a portion of the giant Taurus Molecular Cloud, which extends for nearly 14 degrees across the sky on its longest axis. Just 430–450 light-years away, it may be the closest large star-forming region to Earth. (Credit: Laurent Lucas/Astrobin)

The Taurus Molecular Cloud has thousands of stellar masses worth of cold, collapsing gas.

This far-infrared view of the Taurus Molecular Cloud showcases cool dust grains that emit at only 10–30 K above absolute zero. The brightest, reddest regions here showcase where star-formation is most intense inside. This fiels-of-view spans 13.8° by 7.3°, capturing the known entirety of the molecular cloud complex. (Credit: ESA/Herschel/NASA/JPL-Caltech; Acknowledgement: R. Hurt (JPL-Caltech))

Inside the densest, most massive regions, newborn stars are already thriving.

This amateur astronomy image of dark nebula LDN 1551 showcases the cloud of ionized gas within it: Sharpless 239. Many protostars, surrounded by dusty disks, are located inside, along with numerous Herbig-Haro objects. (Credit: KK_Astro/Kaptàs Attila)

Many young stellar systems have protoplanetary disks: the birthplace of planets.

This image, from ALMA, shows the protoplanetary disk around HL Tauri. The gaps within the disk correspond to the locations of newly-forming planets, and emits jets and outflows (not shown) associated with Herbig-Haro 150: part of the same system. (Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO))

MarylandDigitalNews.comFebruary 17, 2025

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