                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

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                                2021 June 22

                   HD 163296: Jet from a Star in Formation
     Image Credit: Visible: VLT/MUSE (ESO); Radio: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

   Explanation: How are jets created during star formation? No one is
   sure, although recent images of the young star system HD 163296 are
   quite illuminating. The central star in the featured image is still
   forming but seen already surrounded by a rotating disk and an outward
   moving jet. The disk is shown in radio waves taken by the Atacama Large
   Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, and show gaps likely created by the
   gravity of very-young planets. The jet, shown in visible light taken by
   the Very Large Telescope (VLT, also in Chile), expels fast-moving gas
   -- mostly hydrogen -- from the disk center. The system spans hundreds
   of times the Earth-Sun distance (au). Details of these new observations
   are being interpreted to bolster conjectures that the jets are
   generated and shaped, at least in part, by magnetic fields in the
   rotating disk. Future observations of HD 163296 and other similar
   star-forming systems may help fill in details.

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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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