I would like to start this story by saying this is not an illustration. If you are currently listening to this show as a podcast, and you aren’t driving your car, stop this recording and go to our website – DailySpace.org – to see this really amazing image of a new star being born. Don’t worry; we’ll still be here when you get back.

This image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, shows a very young star just starting to punch its way out of the cloud of material it formed in. This protostar is home to a bright jet that is spraying out material that didn’t quite make it into the star, and that material is lighting up as it interacts with its surroundings.

This particular system is cataloged as HH34, and it is 1,250 light-years away in the Orion Nebula — that fuzzy blob in Orion’s sword that you can just see with your eyes in a dark location. A favorite for everyone looking up, this region lets astronomers catch stars in all the different stages of formation. Herbig-Haro objects are very short-lived. The Pyramids of Giza may be older than this beautiful jet! Short-lived objects like this can actually be observed to change over human lifetimes, and Hubble has observed this and other HH objects over and over to try and understand how they, their stunning jets, and the surrounding nebulosity evolve as the central stars turn on.

More Information

NASA press release