The Hubble Space Telescope captures the colorful region surrounding the object Herbig-Haro HH 505. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Bally, Credit: MH Özsaraç This vivid sky cloud from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captures the colorful region surrounding Herbig-Haro object HH 505. Bright regions around newborn stars, Herbig-Haro objects form when stellar winds or gas jets form ejected from these newborn stars are shock waves that collide with nearby gas and dust at high speeds. In the case of HH 505, these outflows originate from the star IX Ori, which lies on the outskirts of the Orion Nebula about 1000 light-years from Earth. The outflows themselves are visible as gracefully curving structures at the top and bottom of this image. They are distorted into sinuous curves due to their interaction with the large-scale flow of gas and dust from the core of the Orion Nebula. This observation captured with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) was made by astronomers studying the properties of outflows and protoplanetary disks. The Orion Nebula is abuzz with intense ultraviolet radiation from bright young stars. The shock waves formed by the outflows are strongly visible in Hubble, but slower-moving streams of stellar material are also highlighted by this radiation. This allows astronomers to directly observe jets and outflows and learn more about their structures. The Orion Nebula is a cavern of turbulent gas and dust where thousands of stars form. The energy released by young stars transforms their place of birth, striking their surroundings in fantastical forms. Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (STScI/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team The Orion Nebula is a dynamic region of dust and gas where thousands of stars are forming and is the closest massive star forming region to Earth. As a result, it is one of the most scrutinized regions of the night sky and has been a frequent target of the Hubble Space Telescope. This observation was also part of a stunning Hubble mosaic (see above) of the Orion Nebula, which combined 520 ACS images in five different colors to create the sharpest view ever taken of the region.
