This amazing space wallpaper reveals the throes of stellar birth, as never before, in the well-studied object known as HH 46/47. The image is the result of combined observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the newly completed Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. Herbig-Haro (HH) objects form when jets shot out by newborn stars collide with surrounding material, producing small, bright, nebulous regions. To our eyes, the dynamics within many HH objects are obscured by enveloping gas and dust. But the infrared and submillimeter light seen by Spitzer and ALMA, respectively, pierces the dark cosmic cloud around HH 46/47 to let us in on the action. This image was released Nov. 11, 2013.
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