The images from the Hubble Space Telescope shared this week are particularly dreamy and stunning, showing the bright colors and soft shapes of a Herbig-Haro object called HH 505. These nebula-like objects are formed from young, energetic stars that emit jets of ionized gas that collide with clouds of dust and gas.
The Hubble scientists explained: “Herbig-Haro objects are glowing regions around newborn stars that form shock waves when stellar winds or jets of gas are ejected from these newborn stars, and these shock waves interact with nearby gas and dust. High-speed collision.” “In the case of HH 505, these outflows came from the star IX Ori, located at the outer periphery of the Orion Nebula, about 1,000 light-years from Earth. At the top and bottom of this image, the outflow itself can be seen as an elegant curved structure …and their interaction with the massive gas and dust streams from the nebula’s core twist them into curved curves.”
This image was taken using Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, which is usually observed in the visible range, but can also be observed in the far-ultraviolet part of the spectrum. In the Orion Nebula, where object HH 505 is located, massive stars emit large amounts of ultraviolet light that interact with the dust and gas in the nebula, opening up space and slowing the birth of new stars. The process of star formation is a careful balance, as stars are born in dense dust and gas held together by gravity. Stars form more easily when there is a lot of dust and gas, but once stars form, they release stellar winds that prevent more stars from being born nearby. The Orion Nebula is a hotbed for star formation, and because of its relative proximity, about 1,500 light-years from Earth, it is often studied to learn more about how stars are born.
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