Hubble Space Telescope reveals star nurseries HOPS 150 and HOPS 153 in the Orion Nebula, showing star formation processes in real time
This week's latest Hubble Space Telescope image provides a stunning glimpse of the Orion Nebula, the closest massive star-forming region to Earth. Just 1,300 light-years from Earth, this nebula is visible to the unaided eye beneath the three stars of Orion's Belt. It's a busy nursery of young stars, including the focus of this image: the protostars HOPS and HOPS 153.
Young protostars revealed
HOPS 150 and HOPS 153 were named as part of the Herschel Orion Protostar Survey, conducted with the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Telescope. HOPS 150, seen in the upper right corner of the image, is a binary system of two young protostars orbiting each other. Each is surrounded by a dusty disk of material from which it is still feeding. A dark cloud of gas and dust, more than two thousand times the distance between the Earth and the Sun, cuts through the bright glow of this pair as it falls into them. Based on the AE and other wavelengths of light emitted by HOPS 150, astronomers estimate that these protostars are halfway to becoming full-fledged stars.
Stellar drama in infrared
On the left side of the image is a narrow, colorful stream called a jet. This jet comes from the nearby protostar HOPS 153, which is out of the frame. HOPS 153 is a much younger stellar object than its neighbor, still buried deep in its birth nebula and enveloped in a cloud of cold, dense gas. Hubble cannot penetrate this gas to see the protostar, but the jet emitted by HOPS 153 is clearly visible as it travels into the gas and dust of the surrounding Orion Nebula.
The transition from a tightly wrapped protostar to a mature star will dramatically affect the environment of HOPS 153. As gas falls on the protostar, its jets eject matter and energy into interstellar space, creating bubbles and heating the gas. By mixing and heating the nearby gas, HOPS 153 may direct the formation of new stars and even slow its own evolution.
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