NASA finds stellar matter jet hidden in dark cloud from space

NASA has released a Spitzer Space Telescope image of a baby star surrounded by two jets of identical material.

The jets, called Herbig-Haro 34, are located in the Orion constellation about 1, 400 light years away from Earth. You can see in the photograph (above) the two jets as green lines emanating from the star.

This is the first time NASA has been able to image both jets. The one on the right had been seen before. But the one on the left only appeared on the telescope's infrared detectors because it was hidden behind a dark cloud.

Discoveries

Spitzer technology has made it possible to see it completely, as the device can "see" through dust as well as visualize the material's ejection from the star. The jets are made of identical nodes of gas and dust, ejected one after another from the area around the star.

Astronomers studied the nodes and found their speed. In this way, they were able to determine that the right-hand jet punctures the stellar material 4.5 years later than the left.

The data also reveals that the area from which the jets emerged is within a sphere around the star, with a radius of three astronomical units (one astronomical unit is the distance between the earth and the sun).

Previous studies estimate that the maximum size of this zone where the gas and dust jets are located has been 10 times larger.