Astronomers Spot Parallel Jets and Circumstellar Disks in Nearby Multistar System

Jun 13, 2024 by News Staff



Barsony et al. discovered twin disks and jets erupting from a pair of young stars in WL20. Image credit: NSF / NRAO / B. Saxton / NASA / JPL-Caltech / Harvard-Smithsonian CfA.


WL20 is located in the rho Ophiuchi molecular cloud complex, over 400 light-years away from Earth.

“What we discovered was absolutely wild,” said Dr. Mary Barsony, lead author of the study.

“We’ve known about star system WL20 for a long time. But what caught our attention is that one of the stars in the system appeared much younger than the rest.”

“Using MIRI and ALMA together, we actually saw that this one star was two stars right next to each other.”

“Each of these stars was surrounded by a disk, and each disk was emitting jets parallel to the other.”

ALMA and Webb’s MIRI observe very different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Using them together allowed the astronomers to discover these twins, hidden in radio and infrared wavelengths in star system. ALMA spotted the disks, while MIRI found the jets.

More:
https://www.sci.news/astronomy/alma-webb-parallel-jets-circumstellar-disks-wl20-13017.html