binary protostars Archives

November 28, 2023November 28, 2023 by Evan Gough

JWST Reveals a Newly-Forming Double Protostar

This new Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope reveals intricate details of the Herbig Haro object 797 (HH 797). HH 797 dominates the lower half of this image. The bright infrared objects in the upper portion of the image are thought to host two further protostars. This image was captured with Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam). Image Credit: JWST/CSA/ESA/NASA

As our newest, most perceptive eye on the ongoing unfolding of the cosmos, the James Webb Space Telescope is revealing many things that were previously unseeable. One of the space telescope’s science goals is to expand our understanding of how stars form. The JWST has the power to see into the cocoons of gas and dust that hide young protostars.

It peered inside one of these cocoons and showed us that what we thought was a single star is actually a binary star.

June 12, 2020June 12, 2020 by Evan Gough

This is a Binary Star in the Process of Formation

Zoom into the Ophiuchus molecular cloud, highlighting the star forming system IRAS 16293-2422 with the proto-star B in the upper right corner and the now clearly identified binary proto-stars A1 and A2 on the bottom left. The binary system is shown also in a further zoom-in panel. Image: © MPE; background: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2; Davide De Martin)

About 460 light years away lies the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. It’s a molecular cloud—an active star-forming region—and it’s one of the closest ones. R. Ophiuchi is a dark nebula, a region so thick with dust that the visible light from stars is almost completely obscured.

But scientists working with ALMA have pin-pointed a pair of young proto-stars inside all that dust, doing the busy work of becoming active stars.