Webb captures newborn star with supersonic jets of gas spewing from its poles

This latest picture from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope reveals exquisite detail of the outflow of a young star. The star, Herbig-Haro 211, is an infantile analog of our Sun when it was no more than a few tens of thousands of years old and will eventually grow into a star like the Sun.

Herbig-Haro objects are formed when newborn stars eject stellar winds or jets of gas into space, which collide with nearby gas and dust at high speeds to produce shock waves. HH 211 lies roughly 1,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Perseus and is one of the youngest and nearest protostellar outflows.

Past observations of this object with ground-based telescopes revealed giant bow shocks moving away from us (northwest) and moving towards us (southeast). This Webb image showcases a series of bow shocks to the southeast (lower-left) and northwest (upper-right) along with the narrow bipolar jet powering them in unprecedented detail - nearly 5 to 10 times higher spatial resolution than any previous images of HH 211.

Using these new observations, researchers found that HH 211's outflow is relatively slow in comparison to more evolved protostars with similar types of outflows. They concluded that outflows from the youngest stars, like that in the center of the star in question, are mostly composed of molecules because the comparatively low shock wave velocities are not energetic enough to break the molecules apart into simpler atoms and ions.

🆕 This new image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James #Webb Space Telescope features Herbig-Haro 211 (HH 211), a bipolar jet travelling through interstellar space at supersonic speeds. HH 211 is one of the youngest and nearest protostellar outflows👉 https://t.co/xErmxI0NwP pic.twitter.com/cFkGDeDQvm

— ESA (@esa) September 14, 2023

This image of HH 211 was captured as part of the Webb Cycle One programme.