Herbig-Haro 110 is a geyser of hot gas from a newborn star that splashes up against and ricochets off the dense core of a cloud of molecular hydrogen. This Hubble Space Telescope photo shows the integrated light from plumes, which are light-years across.
Herbig-Haro (HH) objects come in a wide array of shapes, but the basic configuration stays the same. Twin jets of heated gas, ejected in opposite directions away from a forming star, stream through interstellar space. Astronomers suspect that these outflows are fueled by gas accreting onto a young star surrounded by a disk of dust and gas. The disk is the "fuel tank," the star is the gravitational engine, and the jets are the exhaust.
When these energetic jets slam into colder gas, the gas within the shock front slows to a crawl, but more gas continues to pile up as the jet keeps slamming into the shock from behind. Temperatures climb sharply, and this curving, flared region starts to glow. These "bow shocks" are so named because they resemble the waves that form at the front of a boat.
In the case of the single HH 110 jet, astronomers observe a spectacular and unusual permutation on this basic model. Careful study has repeatedly failed to find the source star driving HH 110, and there may be good reason for this: perhaps the HH 110 outflow is itself generated by another jet.
Astronomers now believe that the nearby HH 270 jet grazes an immovable obstacle – a much denser, colder cloud core – and gets diverted off at about a 60-degree angle. The jet goes dark and then reemerges, having reinvented itself as HH 110.
The jet shows that these energetic flows are like the erratic outbursts from a Roman candle. As fast-moving blobs of gas catch up and collide with slower blobs, new shocks arise along the jet's interior. The light emitted from excited gas in these hot blue ridges marks the boundaries of these interior collisions. By measuring the current velocity and positions of different blobs and hot ridges along the chain within the jet, astronomers can effectively "rewind" the outflow, extrapolating the blobs back to the moment when they were emitted. This technique can be used to gain insight into the source star's history of mass accretion.
This image is a composite of data taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2004 and 2005 and the Wide Field Camera 3 in April 2011.
Credits
NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | HH 110 |
| Object Description | Herbig-Haro Object |
| R.A. Position | 05h 51m 24.91s |
| Dec. Position | 02° 54' 51.84" |
| Constellation | Orion |
| Distance | 1,300 light-years (400 parsecs) |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The image was created from Hubble data from proposals : PI: B. Reipurth (University of Hawaii) and : K. Noll (Hubble Heritage Team). |
| Instrument | HST>ACS/WFC, HST>WFC3/UVIS, and HST>WFC3/IR |
| Exposure Dates | January 21, 2004 and April 25, 2011, Exposure Time: 2.6 hours |
| Filters | WFC3/IR F110W (J), and F160W (H), ACS/WFC F658N (H-alpha), and WFC3/UVIS F814W (I) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | This image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by the ACS and WFC3 instruments. Several filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue: F814W (I) Cyan: F658N (H-alpha) Green: F110W (J) Red: F160W (H) |
| Compass Image |  |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
