Cape Canaveral, Florida – The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured a stunning image of a powerful jet emerging from a cloud of gas and dust, signaling the birth of a new star in the vast cosmos. This cosmic event took place in the Taurus-Auriga region, approximately 450 light years from Earth, where the budding star, known as FS Tau B, is making its presence known.
Astronomers observed the young star, along with previously discovered binary infant stars, within a 2.8 million-year-old nebula in the FS Tau stellar nursery. These stars are enveloped in illuminated gas and dust, remnants of the material that gave birth to them through the process of overdense patches collapsing.
The Hubble image reveals FS Tau B partially obscured by a dust ring, known as a protoplanetary disk, which surrounds the star. This disk is believed to be the precursor to planet formation, as the material within it gathers to create new worlds in the future.
Although not yet a fully-fledged star, FS Tau B is currently in the protostar stage, accumulating mass from its surroundings. Once it reaches a critical mass, hydrogen at its core will begin nuclear fusion, marking the beginning of its main sequence lifetime as a star.
Protostars like FS Tau B emit light not from nuclear fusion but from the heat generated by the collapse of the dust cloud and the accretion of material. These young stars are known to release fast-moving jets of energetic particles, with FS Tau B showcasing a double-sided, asymmetrical jet in the recent Hubble image.
As a Herbig-Haro object, FS Tau B produces glowing patches as its jets interact with surrounding gas and dust clouds at high speeds. This phase is a precursor to the star’s evolution into a T Tauri star, similar to our sun, on its journey towards main sequence status.