APOD: HH 222: The Waterfall Nebula (2011 Oct 24)

[neptunium]

waterfall with neither lake nor rivers, it must be a stagnant waterfall

Actually, the water is still falling. It hasn't reached the ground yet.







Oh, that's right - there is no ground!

[TNT]

Anyway, how can a waterfall be stagnant if the water is constantly falling? Or do you mean the top of the waterfall is stagnant?

[Beyond]

No, HH-34 is the proto-star, jets, and shock waves. Practically all of the subimage I presented above.

The jets would expand as they get further from the source, the white spots, I suspect are just a bit more energetic.

Here is a close up.

Well, i must say that once i reconized it was the same thing as what was being shown as vertical in the APOD picture, it sure doesn't look like a baseball bat.
I guess it makes a big difference in how it looks when it is zoomed in on and you can't see the waterfall and other stuff. So much for Spaceball.

[NoelC]

Reminds me a bit of a photo of Linville Falls I shot back about 30 years ago. It's eroded a good bit since then. Gee it makes you feel old when in your lifetime geology changes... Sigh.

Linville Falls, ca. 1981

-Noel

[DavidLeodis]

It's a fascinating and intriguing image.

I would like to mention that the "One hypothesis" and the "Another hypothesis" links both (currently at least) bring up the same webpage

[jorobar]

While the waterfall is beautiful and interesting, the Herbig-Haro object in the lower left is one of the most interesting of its kind I have seen. There is a second faint object above the upward pointing object apparently from an earlier ejection and complex looking objects to the left and right of the line. Does anyone know of further pictures or studies of this complex?

[chris533]

I allways think that galaxies looks like water going down a drain. An explanation for the waterfall nebula could be a galaxie reamerging like water would on the other side of a drain.

[jasonbetska]

I like to think this beautiful picture is showing us what a wormhole could look like. What if the ionized gas were being either heated up as they travled through this wormhole or its sucking in the gases from the nebula and illuminating the path the gases travel in. I believe in the description it was explained to seem like its flowing downward. Could we be witnessing the first ever wormhole caught on film

Thanks

[StarGrizzly]

Amazing photo! almost impossible

I've wondered how it formed

Tanks to APOD for these wonderful pictures.

[starman]

Also, notice there are several Polar outflows from forming stars (the small, slightly triangular jobs - there's a bright one at the bottom). Maybe the shape of the waterfall itself is caused by the presence of a massive but unseen star, itself probably in the throes of formation and not yet hot enough to register on the photo. The outflows are actually conical but show up as triangular on a 2-d image. Terrific picture, and not just awe-inspiring. Instructive too!