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A symmetrically pulsed jet of gas from an invisible protostar in Orion

Nature volume 394, pages 862–865 (1998)Cite this article

Abstract

Young stars are thought to accumulate most of their mass through an accretion disk, which channels the gas and dust of a collapsing cloud onto the central protostellar object1. The rotational and magnetic forces in the star–disk system often produce high-velocity jets of outflowing gas2,3,4,5,6. These jets can in principle be used to study the accretion and ejection history of the system, which is hidden from direct view by the dust and dense gas of the parent cloud. But the structures of these jets are often too complex to determine which features arise at the source and which are the result of subsequent interactions with the surrounding gas. Here we present infrared observations of a very young jet driven by an invisible protostar in the vicinity of the Horsehead nebula in Orion. These observations reveal a sequence of geyser-like eruptions occurring at quasi-regular intervals and with near-perfect mirror symmetry either side of the source. This symmetry is strong evidence that such features must be associated with the formation of the jet, probably related to recurrent or even chaotic instabilities in the accretion disk.

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Figure 1: Molecular hydrogen images of HH212.
Figure 2: Infrared spectroscopy of HH212.

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Acknowledgements

We thank S. Balbus, J. Bally, R. Blandford, W. Brandner, M. Camenzind, W. Dent, C.Fendt, R. Gredel, G. Hasinger, L. Kofman, R. Mundt, M. Norman, M. Rees, B. Reipurth, M. Smith, F.Shu, J. Stone, C. Terquem, M. Walmsley and H. Yorke for discussions on the theory and observations of astrophysical jets. We also thank C. Ishida for reducing the KSPEC data. H.Z. and M.J.M. were visiting astronomers at the NASA IRTF using the facility camera NSFCAM, with which HH212 was originally discovered.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16, 14482, Potsdam, Germany

    Hans Zinnecker & Mark J. McCaughrean

  2. Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, 96882, Hawaii, USA

    John T. Rayner

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  1. Hans Zinnecker
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  3. John T. Rayner
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Correspondence to Hans Zinnecker.

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Zinnecker, H., McCaughrean, M. & Rayner, J. A symmetrically pulsed jet of gas from an invisible protostar in Orion. Nature 394, 862–865 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/29716

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