In the distant part of the galaxy, a giant young star is shooting two jets of hot gas in opposite directions at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour.
The star, known as S284P1, is about 10 times the mass of the sun and still growing. Its jets span about 8 light-years across—about twice the distance between the sun and the next closest star system in the area. Astronomers spotted S284P1 with the James Webb Space Telescope, a joint partnership between NASA and its European and Canadian counterparts.
Although hundreds of baby star jets — aka ” protostellar jets ” — have been seen before, they are mostly powered by small stars. Observing jets this large coming from a massive star is rare and suggests that the scale of the jet correlates with the size of the developing star, the scientists said.
The discovery provides new insight into how giant stars form – and how similar processes might have operated in the early universe. The new findings have been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal .
“We didn’t really know that there was a massive star with this kind of super-jet there before the observation,” said Yu Cheng, the paper’s lead author, in a statement in the journal Nature. “Such a spectacular outflow of molecular hydrogen from a massive star is rare in other regions of our galaxy.”
The new observations may mean that these stars can grow in a calm and orderly manner, even in harsh conditions.
Credit: NASA GSFC/CIL/Illustration by Adriana Manrique Gutierrez
S284P1 lies on the edge of the Milky Way about 15,000 light-years from Earth. When superheated gas falls on the star, it is deflected as narrow jets, confined by strong magnetic fields. The jets shoot outward—180 degrees apart—into the surrounding dust and gas.
Not only are the jets striking, but the star’s location adds to the intrigue. S284P1 is located in Sharpless 2-284, a region teeming with dense gas clouds and clusters of young stars. But the area has few elements heavier than hydrogen and helium . Many scientists had predicted that giant stars developing in this environment would form in a sloppy way, as heavier elements help the gas and clump together.
It doesn’t seem to have deterred this star.
“I was truly amazed by the order, symmetry and size of the jet when we first looked at it,” Jonathan Tan, a co-author from the University of Virginia and Chalmers University of Technology, said in a statement.
Scientists didn’t expect to find such smooth signs of star formation: It’s known that heavier elements are useful for the process, helping gas cool, break down, and collapse. Without these materials, experts have thought the process would look much different, perhaps happening in sporadic bursts. The new observations could mean that these stars can grow in a calm and orderly manner, even in harsh conditions.
Most of the chemicals in the universe come from exploded stars , so scientists have long thought that the very first stars were made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, the primitive material that emerged from the Big Bang in the Milky Way.
Over time, as stars died, they blasted out heavier elements, which astronomers call “metals.” Those supernovae scatter the seeds of new generations of stars and planets , but scientists admit they still have a lot to learn about how this works.
Massive stars like S284P1 have a significant impact on the evolution of galaxies, which scientists want to better understand, said Cheng, who works for the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.
“We can use this massive star as a laboratory to study what happens in previous cosmic history,” Cheng said.
