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This striking image features a relatively rare celestial phenomenon known as a Herbig\u2013Haro object. This particular Herbig\u2013Haro object is named HH111, and was imaged by Hubble\u2019s\u00a0Wide Field Camera 3Did you Yes. I\u00a0\u00a0(WFC3). These spectacular objects are formed under very specific circumstances. Newly formed stars are often very active, and in some cases they expel very narrow jets of rapidly moving ionised gas \u2014 gas that is so hot that its molecules and atoms have lost their electrons, making the gas highly charged. The streams of ionised gas then collide with the clouds of gas and dust surrounding newly-formed stars at speeds of hundreds of kilometres per second. It is these energetic collisions that create Herbig\u2013Haro objects such as HH111.<\/p>\n
WFC3 takes images at optical and infrared wavelengths, which means that it observes objects at a wavelength range similar to the range that human eyes are sensitive to (optical) and a range of wavelengths that are slightly too long to be detected by human eyes (infrared). Herbig\u2013Haro objects actually release a lot of light at optical wavelengths, but they are difficult to observe because their surrounding dust and gas absorb much of the visible light. Therefore, the WFC3\u2019s ability to observe at infrared wavelengths \u2014 where observations are not as affected by gas and dust\u2014 is crucial to observing Herbo\u2013Haro objects successfully.\u00a0<\/p>\n