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Webb Telescope Reveals the True Nature of a “Cosmic Tornado”

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Webb Telescope Reveals the True Nature of a “Cosmic Tornado”
4 minutes 392

Webb Telescope Reveals the True Nature of a “Cosmic Tornado”

The James Webb Space Telescope (NASA/ESA/CSA) has captured a spectacular image of a “cosmic tornado”: Herbig-Haro 49/50 (HH 49/50), a jet of material emitted by a young star. This observation reveals a fascinating cosmic phenomenon along with a stunning visual coincidence involving a distant spiral galaxy.

What is Herbig-Haro 49/50?

HH 49/50 is a Herbig-Haro object — a jet of gas ejected by a forming protostar. This jet travels through space at high speed and collides with surrounding clouds of matter, creating shock waves visible in infrared light. Webb observed this object in the constellation Chamaeleon, about 630 light-years from Earth.

A Stunning Image Captured by Webb

The composite image combines data from the NIRCam and MIRI instruments, revealing:

  • Reddish-orange shock arcs surrounding the jet,

  • A distant spiral galaxy perfectly aligned with the tip of the jet — a rare and random alignment,

  • A sea of background galaxies, made visible thanks to Webb’s exceptional resolution.

Herbig-Haro 49/50 a Cosmic Tornado
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope observed Herbig-Haro 49/50, an outflow from a nearby still-forming star, in high-resolution near- and mid-infrared light. The intricate features of the outflow, represented in reddish-orange color, provide detailed clues about how young stars form and how their jet activity affects the environment around them. Like the wake of a speeding boat, the bow shocks in this image have an arc-like appearance as the fast-moving jet from the young star slams into the surrounding dust and gas. A chance alignment in this direction of the sky provides a beautiful juxtaposition of this nearby Herbig-Haro object with a more distant spiral galaxy in the background. Herbig-Haro 49/50 gives researchers insights into the early phases of the formation of low-mass stars similar to our own Sun. In this Webb image, blue represents light at 2.0-microns (F200W), cyan represents light at 3.3-microns (F335M), green is 4.4-microns (F444W), orange is 4.7-microns (F470N), and red is 7.7-microns (F770W). NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

Zoomed-In Version

A Likely Source: Cederblad 110 IRS4

The arc-shaped structures point toward Cederblad 110 IRS4, a Class I protostar located about 1.5 light-years from HH 49/50. Thanks to Webb, scientists observed its ice-rich environment, still being fed by a surrounding disk of material.

A Spiral Galaxy at the Tip of the Jet

The once-misidentified fuzzy shape is actually a face-on spiral galaxy, with a blue central bulge (indicative of older stars) and spiral arms rich in warm dust and star-forming regions.

A Natural Laboratory for Studying Stellar Jets

Thanks to this image, researchers are able to:

  • Study how protostellar jets affect their surrounding environment,

  • Model the physical properties of shock waves,

  • Better understand the early phases of star formation for Sun-like stars.

This snapshot of HH 49/50 highlights the James Webb Space Telescope’s power to explore stellar beginnings and unveil cosmic structures previously invisible. It also showcases the unexpected beauty chance alignments can reveal in the universe.

Source

Find an article published by NASA on March 24, 2025, here.

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