View Full Version : Embryonic Star Captured with Jets Flaring


Dr. Spitzer
12-18-07, 06:59 PM
A developing star wrapped in a black cocoon of dust is seen sprouting giant jets in a new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

The stellar portrait, captured in infrared light, offers the first glimpse at a very early stage in the life of an embryonic sun-like star -- a time when the star's natal envelope is beginning to flatten and collapse, and streams of gas are escaping. The observations will ultimately help astronomers better understand how stars and their planets form.

"This is the first time we've clearly seen a flattened envelope around a forming star," said Leslie Looney of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, lead author of a study about the star, called L1157, appearing Dec. 1 in Astrophysical Journal Letters. "Some theories had predicted that envelopes flatten as they collapse onto their stars and surrounding planet-forming disks, but we hadn't seen any strong evidence of this until now."

see the rest:
spitzer.caltech.edu/Media/releases/ssc2007-19/release.shtml

kaneda
12-19-07, 12:27 AM
Magnetic perturbations as the star settles down which is acting on the ample dust and other material in the area, causing jets of the kind we usually see from denser objects like neutron stars. Possibly some proto-planets being sucked in and others being flung away from the star?

It is strange to see that most of the material in the area is "cold". It is said that our own solar system had a cold start which allowed gas giants to form close in. We have seen other gas giants far closer in to a star. Maybe a cold start is normal for a solar system's birth? Your link :

http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media/releases/ssc2007-19/release.shtml