HD 163296: Jet from a Star in Formation
How are jets created during star formation?
No one is sure, although recent images of the
young star system HD 163296 are quite illuminating.
The central star in the
featured image
is still forming but seen already surrounded by a
rotating disk and an
outward moving jet.
The disk is shown in
radio waves taken by the
Atacama Large Millimeter Array
(ALMA) in
Chile,
and show gaps likely created by the gravity of
very-young planets.
The jet, shown in
visible light taken by the
Very Large Telescope (VLT, also in Chile),
expels fast-moving gas -- mostly
hydrogen -- from the disk center.
The system spans hundreds of times the Earth-Sun distance
(au).
Details of these new observations are
being interpreted to
bolster conjectures that the
jets are generated and shaped,
at least in part, by magnetic fields in the rotating disk.
Future observations of
HD 163296
and other similar star-forming systems may help fill in details.