Hubble Spies a Powerful Stellar Blast That Sets Cosmic Clouds Ablaze

The Hubble Space Telescope has once again delivered a striking look at the universe in action, this time capturing a dramatic jet of gas blasting out from a forming star and lighting up the surrounding darkness. The newly released image shows a vivid cosmic scene where high-speed stellar jets collide with clouds of gas, creating glowing structures that help astronomers understand how stars are born and how they shape their environments.

At the heart of this image are two well-known cosmic features called HH 80 and HH 81, part of a rare and extreme stellar system that has fascinated astronomers for decades. While these objects were first observed by Hubble back in 1995, the new image provides a far more detailed and sensitive view, revealing how energetic and unusual this system truly is.

What Exactly Are We Seeing in This Image?

The bright pink and green streaks running diagonally across the image are Herbig-Haro objects, specifically HH 80 and HH 81. These are glowing regions of gas formed when jets of ionized material ejected by a young star slam into slower-moving gas that was released earlier in the star’s life.

In this image, the upper left patch belongs to HH 81, while the lower streak is part of HH 80. Together, they form a colossal outflow system stretching across an astonishing 32 light-years. That makes HH 80/81 the largest known protostellar outflow ever discovered.

To put that in perspective, our entire solar system would look microscopic compared to the scale of this structure.

The Star Behind the Blast

Powering this extraordinary display is a young, still-forming star known as IRAS 18162-2048. This object is not your typical newborn star. It is estimated to be about 20 times more massive than the Sun, making it the most massive protostar in the entire L291 molecular cloud, a vast star-forming region rich in gas and dust.

What makes this system especially remarkable is that Herbig-Haro jets are usually driven by low-mass young stars. HH 80/81 breaks that rule. It is the only known Herbig-Haro jet system powered by a very massive protostar, offering astronomers a rare opportunity to study how massive stars form and interact with their surroundings.

How These Jets Form

Protostars like IRAS 18162-2048 grow by pulling in gas from their environment. This material forms a rotating structure called an accretion disk, which feeds the growing star. Within these disks, ionized gas interacts with powerful magnetic fields generated by the protostar.

These magnetic fields act like cosmic railways, channeling some of the infalling material toward the star’s poles and launching it outward as narrow, high-speed jets. Once ejected, the jets travel vast distances through space.

As these jets collide with previously ejected, slower-moving gas, they create intense shock waves. These shocks heat the gas and excite its atoms, causing them to glow brightly. That glowing gas is what we observe as Herbig-Haro objects.

Speed Records in the Stellar World

Hubble’s observations revealed something truly extreme about HH 80/81: speed. Using Hubble data, astronomers measured parts of the jets moving at over 1,000 kilometers per second. That makes them the fastest recorded outflows from a young stellar object, detected in both radio and visible wavelengths.

This level of speed is extraordinary and highlights just how energetic the processes around massive protostars can be. It also challenges existing models of how such jets are launched and sustained over long periods of time.

The Brightest Herbig-Haro Objects Known

HH 80 and HH 81 are not just large and fast; they are also the brightest Herbig-Haro objects known to exist. Their brightness makes them especially valuable to astronomers, as they can be studied in greater detail across multiple wavelengths.

The combination of brightness, size, speed, and an unusually massive source star makes this system one of the most important laboratories for understanding stellar jets and massive star formation.

Why Hubble Was Essential for This Discovery

The new observations were made possible by the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) aboard Hubble. Its exceptional sensitivity and resolution allowed astronomers to examine fine structural details, track motion within the jets, and identify subtle changes since earlier observations.

By comparing the new data with images taken decades ago, scientists can literally watch how these jets evolve over time. This kind of long-term monitoring is critical for understanding how young stars interact with their surroundings on both small and enormous scales.

Where This Is Happening in the Sky

The HH 80/81 system lies about 5,500 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius, a region of the sky packed with star-forming clouds and dense interstellar material. Although it is far beyond our local neighborhood, its extreme brightness allows Hubble to study it in impressive detail.

A Closer Look at Herbig-Haro Objects

Herbig-Haro objects are relatively short-lived on cosmic timescales, typically lasting tens of thousands of years. They are signposts of active star formation, marking places where young stars are still accreting material and ejecting jets.

Most known HH objects are associated with Sun-like or smaller stars, which makes HH 80/81 a standout case. Studying systems like this helps astronomers refine their theories of how massive stars form, a process that is still less understood than the formation of low-mass stars.

Why This Matters Beyond One Image

Massive stars play a huge role in shaping galaxies. They produce intense radiation, powerful winds, and eventually explode as supernovae, enriching space with heavy elements. Understanding how they form — and how early jets like those in HH 80/81 influence their environment — is key to understanding the broader evolution of galaxies.

This new Hubble image is not just visually stunning. It is a reminder that star formation is a violent, energetic, and deeply influential process, especially when massive stars are involved.

Research reference:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1181223