NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has spied three young stars shining through a nebula as they orbit each other, one of which is about to ignite.
This “glittering cosmic geode” triple-star system—each named HP Tau, HP Tau G2, and HP Tau G3—is situated around 550 light years away from Earth, in the constellation of Taurus.
HP Tau, in particular, is incredibly young compared to our own sun, and hasn’t even started nuclear fusion yet, which is the process by which stars fuse hydrogen into helium to power themselves.
Hubble image of the triple-star star system. One of these stars is a T Tauri star, meaning it hasn’t begun nuclear fusion yet.
NASA, ESA, G. Duchene Universite de Grenoble I); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America
HP Tau is a T Tauri star, which is a class of young, variable stars in the early stages of stellar evolution. They are typically less than 10 million years old, while in comparison, the sun is about 4.6 billion years old.
These stars are found in star-forming regions like nebulae, and are considered to be the precursors to main-sequence stars like our sun, representing a stage in stellar evolution where a protostar has stopped accumulating mass from its surrounding gas cloud but has not yet begun hydrogen fusion in its core. Most of these stars are in binary systems, and about half have disks of debris surrounding them that could one day condense into planets in much the same manner as the formation of our own solar system.
In the picture, HP Tau can be seen with its two other companion stars within a reflection nebula. Reflection nebulae are only seen as a result of reflecting light from nearby stars, and do not emit visible light of their own.
HP Tau’s brightness can be seen to fluctuate over time due to its status as a variable star, which is common for T Tauri stars. This variability is caused by unstable and often vigorous stellar activity, which is the result of material falling into the star, stellar flares and giant sunspots.
This picture was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, a large, space-based observatory that has revolutionized our understanding of the universe since its launch in 1990.
Hubble has made numerous groundbreaking discoveries, including the Hubble Deep Field and Ultra Deep Field images, which revealed thousands of galaxies in a small patch of sky, providing insights into the early universe. Hubble was also key in obtaining precise measurements of the rate of expansion of the universe, contributing to the understanding of dark energy, as well as the detection and analysis of the atmospheres of exoplanets, and studying of the structure and behavior of galaxies.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)—which started sending back images in 2022—represents a significant technological and scientific advancement over Hubble. JWST’s larger mirror allows it to collect more light, making it much more sensitive and capable of observing fainter objects, and it is optimized for infrared observations, meaning that it is primed to study the formation of stars and planets, observe distant galaxies from the early universe, and analyze the atmospheres of exoplanets.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
