Throwing tantrums in stellar nurseries.

Throwing tantrums in stellar nurseries

The world of a young star is a turbulent one. Recent radiowave and infrared observations of stellar nurseries reveal complicated patterns of gas flow, stellar winds, jets shooting out of newly formed stars and a variety of compact and extended structures, some moving at high speeds. One particularly unusual object lies embedded in a dark cloud rich in gas and dust, located about 2,000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Serpens. The object's radio-wave signature shows it has three aligned components: a stationary, central component and two blobs flying away from the central component at more than 300 kilometers per second.

The central component probably represents a very young star about 300 times more luminous than the sun, says Luis F. Rodriguez of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City. The outer components prove more puzzling because they seem to emit synchrotron radiation -- a process that requires the presence of magnetic fields and charged particles moving near the speed of light. Present star-formation theories don't account for the production of such highspeed particles in the environment of very young stars.