Hubble sees disks around young stars | 9/02/1999 | ||
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[Top left]: This Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) image shows Herbig-Haro 30 (HH 30), the prototype of a young star surrounded by a thin, dark disk and emitting powerful gaseous jets. The disk extends 40 billion miles from left to right in the image, dividing the nebula in two. | ||
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Image Credit: Chris Burrows (STScI), John Krist (STScI), Karl Stapelfeldt (JPL) and colleagues, the WFPC2 Science Team and NASA. | |||
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[Top
left]: This Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) image shows Herbig-Haro
30 (HH 30), the prototype of a young star surrounded by a thin, dark disk
and emitting powerful gaseous jets. The disk extends 40 billion miles from
left to right in the image, dividing the nebula in two. The central star
is hidden from direct view, but its light reflects off the upper and lower
surfaces of the disk to produce the pair of reddish nebulae. The gas jets
are shown in green. Credit: Chris Burrows (STScI), the WFPC2 Science Team and NASA. [Lower left]: Haro 6-5B is a nearly edge-on disk surrounded by a complex
mixture of wispy clouds of dust and gas. In this WFPC2 image, the central
star is partially hidden by the disk, but can be pinpointed by the stubby
jet (shown in green), which it emits. The dark disk extends 32 billion
miles across at a 90-degree angle to the jet. |
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[Top
right]: DG Tauri B appears very similar to HH 30, with jets and a central
dark lane with reflected starlight at its edges. In this WFPC2 image, the
dust lane is much thicker than seen in HH 30, indicating that dusty material
is still in the process of falling onto the hidden star and disk. The bright
jet extends a distance of 90 billion miles away from the system. Credit: Chris Burrows (STScI), the WFPC2 Science Team and NASA. [Lower right]: HK Tauri is the first example of a young binary star system
with an edge-on disk around one member of the pair. The thin, dark disk
is illuminated by the light of its hidden central star. The absence of
jets indicates that the star is not actively accreting material from this
disk. The disk diameter is 20 billion miles. The brighter primary star
appears at top of the image. |
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