Herbig-Haro Object 49/50: Stellar Outflow in Chamaeleon | Webb Telescope
The NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope observed Herbig-Haro 49/50, an outflow from a nearby still-forming star, in high-resolution near- and mid-infrared light. Herbig-Haro 49/50 is located about 630 light-years from Earth in the constellation Chamaeleon.
The young star is off to the lower right corner of the Webb image. Intricate features of the outflow, represented in reddish-orange color, provide detailed clues about how young stars form and how their jet activity affects the environment around them. A chance alignment in this direction of the sky provides a beautiful juxtaposition of this nearby Herbig-Haro object (located within our Milky Way) with a face-on spiral galaxy in the distant background.
Protostars are young stars in the process of formation that generally launch narrow jets of material. These jets move through the surrounding environment, even extending to large distances away from the protostar.
HH 49/50 is located in the Chamaeleon I Cloud complex, one of the nearest active star formation regions in our Milky Way, which is creating numerous low-mass stars similar to our Sun. This cloud complex is likely similar to the environment that our Sun formed in. Past observations of this region show that the HH 49/50 outflow is moving away from us at speeds of 100-300 kilometres per second and is just one feature of a larger outflow.
Like the water wake generated by a speeding boat, the arcs in this image are created by the fast-moving jet slamming into surrounding dust and gas. This ambient material is compressed and heats up, then cools by emitting light at visible and infrared wavelengths. In particular, the infrared light captured here by Webb highlights molecular hydrogen and carbon monoxide.
The galaxy that appears by happenstance at the tip of Herbig-Haro 49/50 is a much more distant spiral galaxy. It has a prominent central bulge represented in blue that shows the location of older stars. It also displays hints of “side lobes,” suggesting that this could be a barred-spiral galaxy. Reddish clumps within the spiral arms show the locations of warm dust and groups of forming stars.
There are many more galaxies at further distances in the surrounding background, including ones that shine through the diffuse infrared glow of the nearby Herbig-Haro object.
Release Date: March 24, 2025
