Hubble Captures the Violent Birth of a Star

The Bad Astronomer writes "In what is one of the most staggeringly beautiful Hubble pictures ever taken, a newly-born massive star is blasting four separate jets of material into its surrounding cocoon, carving out cavities in the material over two light years long. But only three of the jets appear to have matter still inside them, and the central star is off-center. This may be a gorgeous picture, but the science behind it is equally as compelling."

Comments

Was the government notified?

[roman_mir]

Were the Vogons notified of this latest development? Were all the forms properly filled in, signed, stamped and approved?

How many government forms does it take for a new star to be allowed to be born? There are all sorts of special interests that may not like this new star from appearing, it's new energy competition, there could be new life forms created, that would compete with the existing interests and it's obviously bad.

OOOOOLD

[zill]

The Bad Astronomer writes

Bad is quite the understatement here, considering that this story is over 2000 years old.

Re:Stellar formation?

[Baloroth]

but how do we know the star is forming rather than, say, dying?

You can tell because of the pixels.