HH 34, a curious object in the constellation of Orion, is captured in this amazing image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
This composite image shows the young Herbig-Haro object HH 34. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.
Pictured punching through cosmic dust is a jet of very hot gas released by a protostar.
As this jet moves through space with a velocity of up to 250 km/sec, it collides with cooler surrounding interstellar matter.
The result is the colorful object to the lower left, produced as the cooler material is heated by the jet.
This tiny patch of nebulosity, named HH34, is an example of a so-called Herbig-Haro (HH) object.
Also known as Haro 4-369, HH 34 is located in the Orion Nebula star-forming region at a distance of roughly 1,370 light-years.
Although the jet extends the entire length between HH34 and the protostar, only a fraction of it appears visible.
This part of the jet possesses an intricate structure of knots and ripples, thought to be caused by the different outbursts catching up and ramming into each other over time.
Objects like HH 34 are very common in star-forming regions.
They are short-lived, and their motion and evolution can actually be seen over very short timescales, on the order of years.
This composite image includes infrared and optical observations from both Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2).
