ESA's surreal Hubble pic shows young star shooting supersonic jet; know all about it

The European Space Agency (ESA) has released a brand new image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope that showcases never-seen-before features. The photograph shows an extremely young star, which is in the earliest phase of formation, generating an energetic outburst running across the dark cosmic sky. According to the ESA, the outburst is an incandescent jet of gas travelling at supersonic speeds that is creating colourfully wispy structures, which astronomers refer to as Herbig–Haro objects. 

More about the Herbig–Haro object

ESA explains that the wispy structures got their colours after the jet collided with material surrounding the still-forming star, which resulted in the shock heating the material and causing it to glow. This particular Herbig-Haro object is named HH34 and resides approximately 1,250 light-years from Earth. The object can be found in the Orion nebula, which is a large region of star formation visible to the unaided eye. ESA says that the Orion nebula has been studied by astronomers to get more insights into how stars and planetary systems are born as it is one of the closest sites of widespread star formation to Earth. 

While the image was released now, scientists observed it using the Hubble telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 between 1994 and 2007 and again in 2015.

The James Webb Space Telescope to target HH34

The HH34 is also on the long list of the James Webb Space Telescope, which was launched on December 25, 2021, to observe the early universe and make new discoveries in unprecedented detail. ESA says that Webb would observe the HH34 in infrared wavelengths of light and peer into the dusty envelopes to revolutionise the study of jets from these young stars and still-forming protostars. "Hubble’s high-resolution images of HH34 and other jets will help astronomers interpret future observations with Webb", ESA said in a report. 

The Webb telescope, which has been installed at the second Lagrange point, is currently undergoing its commissioning phase wherein the engineers are aligning its primary mirror and turning on the instruments. Recently, the telescope released a brand new image of a star it produced during the process of mirror alignment.