A Particle Beam Jet forms HH 24
If you visit HH 24, don't go near the particle beam jet.
This potential future travel advisory might be issued because the powerful jet likely contains
electrons and
protons moving hundreds of kilometers per second.
The above image was taken by the
Hubble Space Telescope in
infrared light
in order to
better understand turbulent star forming regions known as
Young Stellar Objects (YSOs).
Frequently when a star forms, a disk of dust and gas circles the
YSO causing a
powerful central jets to appear.
In this case, the
energetic jets
are creating, at each end,
Herbig-Haro object 24
(HH 24), as they slam into the surrounding interstellar gas.
The entire star forming region lies about 1,500
light years distant in the
Orion B molecular cloud complex.
Due to their rarity,
jets like that forming HH 24 are estimated to last only a few thousand years.