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This particular Herbig-Haro object is called HH 34, among the most spectacular phenomena we can observe in the Milky Way. But that's not all it is. These fleeting outbursts, which can be observed changing on a scale of Earth years, contain clues that can help us figure out how baby stars are born.
For a Herbig-Haro object to form, there needs to be a specific set of circumstances. It starts with a baby star, known as a protostar. Protostars form from dense clumps of gas and dust in a molecular cloud that collapses under its own gravity. As this celestial cradle spins, protostars start accreting material from the cloud around them.
During this process, the protostar can blast out powerful jets of plasma from its poles. It's thought that some of the material that is swirling around the protostar gets funneled along its magnetic field lines.
These magnetic field lines accelerate particles so that, when the material reaches the poles, it is launched at considerable speeds into space as very tight collimated jets. The insane temperatures involved ionize the material, turning it into plasma.
For a Herbig-Haro object, these jets, traveling at hundreds of kilometers per hour, then slam, hard, into the surrounding molecular cloud. Where these interactions occur, hot temperatures cause the material to glow brightly.
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