James Webb depicts a very young star in the process of setting fire to its surroundings

The James Webb Telescope captured a stunning image of the Herbig-Haro object 211. The very young star is blowing extremely hot gas into space.

The cause of this cosmic masterpiece is a protostar at a distance of a thousand light years from Earth. The developing star is tens of thousands of years old and weighs ten times less than the Sun. Eventually, the star will be as massive as our parent star. The star continues to collect matter and thus grows into a full-fledged star.

A dipole beam causes a series Arc shocks. A bow shock — similar to a ship’s bow wave — occurs when the star’s particles and magnetic fields collide with interstellar gas and dust. In James Webb’s new image, numerous bow shocks are clearly visible due to the large amount of matter present in the stellar wind. The new image shows five to ten times sharper details than previous images of HH 211.

What are Herbig-Haro organisms?
Herbig-Haro objects are small emission nebulae surrounding young stars, which form when gases are emitted from newly forming stars. This ionized gas collides with other gas and dust clouds in the area at speeds of several hundred kilometers per second, creating these nebulae.

More beautiful pictures of HH beings
Scientists have a great fascination with Herbig-Haro objects. Earlier this year, we shared this space image for Herbig-Haro Body Week 111. With a little imagination, you can see a Star Wars lightsaber here. Or how about this stunning celestial cloudscape in the Orion Nebula. Here we see stellar winds and cosmic jets from the ninth star Ori. In 2013, Hubble discovered a variable star — V633 Cassiopeiae — that is constantly spewing extremely hot gas into space. Two Herbig-Haro objects can be found near this star, HH161 and HH164. Together they create a sort of horseshoe-like shape.