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4w ago

Webb Telescope Resolves 19-Year Mystery of 'Cosmic Tornado'

The James Webb Space Telescope has revealed intricate details of Herbig-Haro 49/50, identifying a distant spiral galaxy at its tip and offering new insights into star formation.

Image
JWST's image of the "Cosmic Tornado".
This side-by-side comparison shows a Spitzer Space Telescope Infrared Array Camera image of HH 49/50 (left) versus a Webb image of the same object (right) using the NIRCam (Near-infrared Camera) instrument and MIRI (Mid-infrared Instrument). The Webb image shows intricate details of the heated gas and dust as the protostellar jet slams into the material. Webb also resolves the “fuzzy” object located at the tip of the outflow into a distant spiral galaxy. The Spitzer image shows 3.6-micron light in blue, the 4.5-micron in green, and the 8.0-micron in red (IRAC1, IRAC2, IRAC4). In the Webb image, blue represents light at 2.0-microns (F200W), cyan represents light at 3.3-microns (F335M), green is 4.4-microns (F444W), orange is 4.7-microns (F470N), and red is 7.7-microns (F770W). NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NASA-JPL, SSC

Overview

  • The James Webb Space Telescope captured a high-resolution image of Herbig-Haro 49/50, a protostellar outflow located 625-630 light-years away in the Chamaeleon constellation.
  • The previously unclear object at the tip of the outflow, first observed by the Spitzer Space Telescope in 2006, has been identified as a distant face-on spiral galaxy unrelated to the outflow.
  • The image highlights glowing hydrogen and carbon monoxide molecules, energized dust grains, and arc-shaped features resembling a boat wake, providing new data on protostellar jets and their environments.
  • Scientists confirmed that the protostar Cederblad 110 IRS4, located 1.5 light-years from HH 49/50, is likely driving the jet activity that created the outflow.
  • The alignment of the outflow and the spiral galaxy is coincidental, with the expanding edge of HH 49/50 expected to obscure the galaxy over thousands of years.