Ever wonder how a star forms?
To put it simply, a bunch of gasses and space dust gather together via gravitational pull until they get so compressed that the gas ignites via nuclear fusion, and a proto-star begins to form.
Any material that doesn't get absorbed by the star itself begins to spin around it, eventually clumping together into planets, asteroids and other debris until most of the unused material has been ejected and cleared over millions of years. Think of it like a big Frisbee full of spinning particles.
At the same time, in the opposite axis to its spinning motion, jets of ionized gas are also being shot out into space from the proto star's magnetic poles. When these jets interact with nearby gas nebulae, you can see formations called Herbig-Haro objects.... and that's exactly what I've highlighted in this close-up image of the Pelican Nebula (IC5070). The most obvious one is visible as 'jets' at the end of the long finger-like column of gas near image centre. It's called HH555. In fact, there are at least 7 HH objects in this photo, if you know where to look.
I love taking beautiful images of the cosmos, but sometimes the science is pretty amazing too 🤓
All data was captured from my backyard using a
@celestronuniverse EdgeHD 925 telescope, a
@zwoasi 1600MM astro camera with specialized filters and a
@skywatcherusa EQ6-R mount.
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