A stellar sprinkler

This Picture of the Week shows the young stellar object 244-440 in the Orion Nebula observed with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) –– the sharpest image ever taken of this object. That wiggly magenta structure is a jet of matter launched close to the star, but why does it have that shape?

Very young stars are often surrounded by discs of material falling towards the star. Some of this material can be expelled into powerful jets perpendicularly to the disc. The S-shaped jet of 244-440 suggests that what lurks at the center of this object isn’t one but two stars orbiting each other. This orbital motion periodically changes the orientation of the jet, similar to a water sprinkler. Another possibility is that the strong radiation from the other stars in the Orion cloud could be altering the shape of the jet.

These observations, presented in a new paper led by Andrew Kirwan at Maynooth University in Ireland, were taken with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument at ESO’s VLT in Chile. Red, green and blue colours show the distribution of iron, nitrogen and oxygen respectively. But this is just a small fraction of all the data gathered by MUSE, which actually takes thousands of images at different colours or wavelengths simultaneously. This allows astronomers to study not only the distribution of many different chemical elements but also how they move. 

Moreover, MUSE is installed at the VLT’s Unit Telescope 4, which is equipped with an advanced adaptive optics facility that corrects atmospheric turbulence, delivering images sharper than Hubble’s. These new observations will therefore allow astronomers to study with unprecedented detail how stars are born in massive clouds like Orion.

Links

Crédit:

ESO/Kirwan et al.

À propos de l'image

Identification:potw2316a
Type:Observation
Date de publication:17 avril 2023 06:00
Taille:684 x 662 px

À propos de l'objet

Nom:V* V2423 Ori
Type:Milky Way : Star : Evolutionary Stage : Young Stellar Object
Constellation:Orion
Catégorie:Stars

Formats des images

Grand JPEG
66,7 Kio

Zoomable


Fonds d'écran

1024x768
94,9 Kio
1280x1024
128,8 Kio
1600x1200
168,1 Kio
1920x1200
194,7 Kio
2048x1536
239,3 Kio

Coordinates

Position (RA):5 35 24.46
Position (Dec):-5° 24' 39.67"
Field of view:0.14 x 0.14 arcminutes
Orientation:North is -0.0° left of vertical

Couleurs & filtres

DomaineLongueur d'ondeTélescope
Visible
OI
630 nmVery Large Telescope
MUSE
Visible
NII
654 nmVery Large Telescope
MUSE
Visible
FeII
715 nmVery Large Telescope
MUSE