The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured a remarkable image of the edge-on protoplanetary disk surrounding the Herbig-Haro object HH 30, located in the Taurus Molecular Cloud. This image, obtained using the telescope's Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), provides unprecedented detail about the formation of planets around young stars.
Herbig-Haro objects are bright patches of nebulosity associated with protostars in star-forming regions. They form when hot gas ejected by a newborn star collides with surrounding gas and dust, creating shock waves. HH 30 exhibits a narrow jet of gas emanating from a young star hidden behind an edge-on protoplanetary disk.
The Webb observations, combined with data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), reveal the distribution of dust grains within the disk. Larger dust grains are concentrated in the central plane of the disk, while smaller grains are more widespread. This migration of dust grains is crucial for planet formation, as they clump together to form pebbles and eventually planets.
The images also reveal intricate structures within the HH 30 system, including a high-velocity jet emerging from the disk, a wider conical outflow, and a nebula reflecting light from the embedded star. These observations highlight the dynamic nature of protoplanetary disks and the complex processes involved in planet formation.