APOD: Protostellar Outflows in Serpens (2024 Jun 27)

[APOD Robot]

Protostellar Outflows in Serpens

Explanation: Jets of material blasting from newborn stars, are captured in this James Webb Space Telescope close-up of the Serpens Nebula. The powerful protostellar outflows are bipolar, twin jets spewing in opposite directions. Their directions are perpendicular to accretion disks formed around the spinning, collapsing stellar infants. In the NIRcam image, the reddish color represents emission from molecular hydrogen and carbon monoxide produced as the jets collide with the surrounding gas and dust. The sharp image shows for the first time that individual outflows detected in the Serpens Nebula are generally aligned along the same direction. That result was expected, but has only now come into clear view with Webb's detailed exploration of the active young star-forming region. Brighter foreground stars exhibit Webb's characteristic diffraction spikes. At the Serpens Nebula's estimated distance of 1,300 light-years, this cosmic close-up frame is about 1 light-year across.

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[AVAO]

Protostellar Outflows in Serpens

Explanation: Jets of material blasting from newborn stars, are captured in this James Webb Space Telescope close-up of the Serpens Nebula. The powerful protostellar outflows are bipolar, twin jets spewing in opposite directions. Their directions are perpendicular to accretion disks formed around the spinning, collapsing stellar infants. In the NIRcam image, the reddish color represents emission from molecular hydrogen and carbon monoxide produced as the jets collide with the surrounding gas and dust. The sharp image shows for the first time that individual outflows detected in the Serpens Nebula are generally aligned along the same direction. That result was expected, but has only now come into clear view with Webb's detailed exploration of the active young star-forming region. Brighter foreground stars exhibit Webb's characteristic diffraction spikes. At the Serpens Nebula's estimated distance of 1,300 light-years, this cosmic close-up frame is about 1 light-year across.

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This Day in APOD

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Click to view full size image

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, K. Pontoppidan (NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory), J. Green (Space Telescope Science Institute)


Great: ZOOM IN: https://esawebb.org/images/weic2415a/zoomable/

[Ann]

Protostellar Outflows in Serpens

Explanation: Jets of material blasting from newborn stars, are captured in this James Webb Space Telescope close-up of the Serpens Nebula. The powerful protostellar outflows are bipolar, twin jets spewing in opposite directions. Their directions are perpendicular to accretion disks formed around the spinning, collapsing stellar infants. In the NIRcam image, the reddish color represents emission from molecular hydrogen and carbon monoxide produced as the jets collide with the surrounding gas and dust. The sharp image shows for the first time that individual outflows detected in the Serpens Nebula are generally aligned along the same direction. That result was expected, but has only now come into clear view with Webb's detailed exploration of the active young star-forming region. Brighter foreground stars exhibit Webb's characteristic diffraction spikes. At the Serpens Nebula's estimated distance of 1,300 light-years, this cosmic close-up frame is about 1 light-year across.

<< Previous APOD

This Day in APOD

Next APOD >>

Click to view full size image

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, K. Pontoppidan (NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory), J. Green (Space Telescope Science Institute)


Great: ZOOM IN: https://esawebb.org/images/weic2415a/zoomable/

Fantastic image, Jac!

I can see what appears to be protoplanetary disks around the brightest stars in the larger image.

But I have a question:

Why do the white blob and the yellow blob appear to be windblown in opposite directions?

The windblown white blob, by the way, is ever so slightly similar to Hubble's Variable Nebula.

Hubble's Variable Nebula. Credit: HST/NASA/JPL/Judy Schmidt

---

Ann

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Spectacular. Aesthetically, is that JWST's best image?

@Ann - Could the lower object you've labelled be a bipolar outflow, with one jet hidden behind dust?

[vstill]

It would have helped to label this image, as I can't tell from the text exactly what I'm looking at—confusing at best.

[Christian G.]

Marvellous image, cosmic creation in full force! And we barely need to "surmise" what's going on, we see those new worlds forming! (even more so in AVAO's zoom-in link)

[florid_snow]

It would have helped to label this image, as I can't tell from the text exactly what I'm looking at—confusing at best.

I really like when APOD does "mouse-over" annotated images, that's a good compromise between clarity and the beautiful view without text labels.

Haha, and I know you mean well, I mean well too, just reminds me a little of "one star reviews of National Parks", is it really confusing *at best*? I think it's an awe-inspiring vista, a scientific and engineering marvel, with confusion as an important part of the experience.

I also don't understand what I'm seeing in this image, and I find it confusing, but it's a feeling of being awe-struck and bewildered in a positive way. And even experts don't know exactly what they are looking at in this image, since JWST is a brand new research telescope, taking never-before-possible pictures. But I agree it can be helpful to at least put an arrow or something saying, 'these are the spots we are talking about and researching'.

[johnnydeep]

Yeah, I'm not clearly seeing any obvious aligned "jests" in this image. Fortunately, there is a nice image at the "detailed explanation" link that provides some help, though the alignments aren't as close as I was expecting. The original image is too big to post, but here's a side-by-side comparison with today's APOD:

Figure 1:The central location of each outflow (green arrows) and suggested driving sources (blue stars) indicated on a NIRCam-color image (F140M - blue, F210M - green, F360M - orange, F480M - red). The arrow and source locations are offset from the outflow for clarity - refer to the coordinates in the catalogue for accurate outflow coordinates. This combined image is centered at approximately 18:29:55.8 +01:14:34. Image processing credit: Alyssa Pagan.
The spin axes of very young stars may be efficiently traced by their outflows. Indeed, the emergence of energetic protostellar outflows is a ubiquitous signature of early star formation (Frank et al., 2014). Collimated jets launching from the innermost regions of low-mass young stars impact surrounding molecular cloud material and can create striking structures of shocked ionized, atomic, and molecular gas (Reipurth & Bally, 2001; Bally, 2016). Since the jets are likely accelerated and collimated by a rapidly rotating poloidal magnetic field in the inner star-disk system, they emerge along the stellar rotation axis and thus trace the angular momentum vector of the star itself (Kwan & Tademaru, 1988; Ouyed & Pudritz, 1997; Banerjee & Pudritz, 2006).

Jet material ejected from protostellar systems may contain sufficient momentum to reach distances comparable to the entire cloud, giving rise to spectacular “parsec-scale” outflows (Eisloffel & Mundt, 1997; Reipurth et al., 1997). As some protostellar outflows traverse molecular cloud core scales (
∼
1-2 pc) in less than the cloud life time, they provide an important feedback mechanism that may act to limit the ability of a cloud to form new stars (Hansen et al., 2012; Plunkett et al., 2015). Indeed, molecular clouds are known to form stars at a relatively low conversion efficiency (Evans et al., 2009; Federrath & Klessen, 2012).

[AVAO]

Marvellous image, cosmic creation in full force! And we barely need to "surmise" what's going on, we see those new worlds forming! (even more so in AVAO's zoom-in link)

Here is some context about the environment and the comparison between Optical and IR.
Dynamic area up there ,-)

Click to view full size image 1 or image 2

Click to view full size image

NASA/ESA(JWST/HERSCHEL/WISE/more) jac berne (flickr)

[stargazer2024]

Amazing! Can't get over the increase in angular resoloution this instrument has! Though one must be fogiven if looking at this they think they're looking at a California hillside.

[Ann]

Marvellous image, cosmic creation in full force! And we barely need to "surmise" what's going on, we see those new worlds forming! (even more so in AVAO's zoom-in link)

Here is some context about the environment and the comparison between Optical and IR.
Dynamic area up there ,-)

Click to view full size image 1 or image 2

Click to view full size image

NASA/ESA(JWST/HERSCHEL/WISE/more) jac berne (flickr)

Wonderful as always, Jac!

Personally I didn't recognize this nebula at all, and I wanted to know "where we are". This is what the nebula looks like in optical light:

These are apparently a few of the stars that we see:

Can't keep this beautiful image from you:

The Serpens Cloud. Credit: Leo Shatz.

---

Leo Shatz' image shows the full extent of the dark nebula that has birthed the star formation that we see in the APOD. The star formation takes place at far left in the cloud as seen in Leo Shatz' image. Can you spot the tiny elongated yellow opening in the dark dust next to a small blue star?

Leo Shatz' image is so beautiful. View it at full size here.

Ann

[VictorBorun]

offtopic: a funny new year tree fish

[VictorBorun]

Yeah, I'm not clearly seeing any obvious aligned "jests" in this image. Fortunately, there is a nice image at the "detailed explanation" link that provides some help, though the alignments aren't as close as I was expecting. The original image is too big to post, but here's a side-by-side comparison with today's APOD:


Protostellar Outflows in Serpens.jpg

Figure 1:The central location of each outflow (green arrows) and suggested driving sources (blue stars) indicated on a NIRCam-color image (F140M - blue, F210M - green, F360M - orange, F480M - red). The arrow and source locations are offset from the outflow for clarity - refer to the coordinates in the catalogue for accurate outflow coordinates. This combined image is centered at approximately 18:29:55.8 +01:14:34. Image processing credit: Alyssa Pagan.
The spin axes of very young stars may be efficiently traced by their outflows. Indeed, the emergence of energetic protostellar outflows is a ubiquitous signature of early star formation (Frank et al., 2014). Collimated jets launching from the innermost regions of low-mass young stars impact surrounding molecular cloud material and can create striking structures of shocked ionized, atomic, and molecular gas (Reipurth & Bally, 2001; Bally, 2016). Since the jets are likely accelerated and collimated by a rapidly rotating poloidal magnetic field in the inner star-disk system, they emerge along the stellar rotation axis and thus trace the angular momentum vector of the star itself (Kwan & Tademaru, 1988; Ouyed & Pudritz, 1997; Banerjee & Pudritz, 2006).

Jet material ejected from protostellar systems may contain sufficient momentum to reach distances comparable to the entire cloud, giving rise to spectacular “parsec-scale” outflows (Eisloffel & Mundt, 1997; Reipurth et al., 1997). As some protostellar outflows traverse molecular cloud core scales

(

...
∼
1-2 pc) in less than the cloud life time, they provide an important feedback mechanism that may act to limit the ability of a cloud to form new stars (Hansen et al., 2012; Plunkett et al., 2015). Indeed, molecular clouds are known to form stars at a relatively low conversion efficiency (Evans et al., 2009; Federrath & Klessen, 2012).

a fitting:

...

Click to view full size image 1 or image 2

[VictorBorun]

disk shadow 1

The disk around the intermediate-mass young star EC 82 casts a large shadow on surrounding reflection nebulosity, giving rise to the so-called “Great Serpens Disk Shadow”

...

Click to view full size image 1 or image 2

[VictorBorun]

disk shadow 2

a second, much smaller, disk shadow, noted in Pontoppidan et al. (2020), is also visible east of EC 82. The orientation of this second disk shadow is similar to that of EC 82.

...

Click to view full size image 1 or image 2

[Ann]

disk shadow 1

The disk around the intermediate-mass young star EC 82 casts a large shadow on surrounding reflection nebulosity, giving rise to the so-called “Great Serpens Disk Shadow”

sh1.jpgsh1+.jpg

...

Click to view full size image 1 or image 2

That's an impressive disk shadow, Victor!

I guess the star surrounded by this massive disk is spectral A or possibly late B.

Ann

[VictorBorun]

Why do the white blob and the yellow blob appear to be windblown in opposite directions?
The windblown white blob, by the way, is ever so slightly similar to Hubble's Variable Nebula.

Hubble's Variable Nebula. Credit: HST/NASA/JPL/Judy Schmidt

---

Ann

fitting the Protostellar Jets Map to the Two Questions by Ann

...

Click to view full size image 1 or image 2

[Ann]

Why do the white blob and the yellow blob appear to be windblown in opposite directions?
The windblown white blob, by the way, is ever so slightly similar to Hubble's Variable Nebula.

Hubble's Variable Nebula. Credit: HST/NASA/JPL/Judy Schmidt

---

Ann

fitting the Protostellar Jets Map to the Two Questions by Ann

what's this.jpgwhat's this+.jpg

...

Click to view full size image 1 or image 2

You are right, Victor. Obviously it has to do with stellar outflows and the interaction between the jets and the dust.

Ann