Astronomers have captured stunning images of a star in the process of being born, and they are as beautiful as they are counterintuitive. Newly forming stars send out large jets of gas, even as they pull gas and other matter toward them in the process of their formation. The outflows are caused as the magnetic field of the protostar interacts with the magnetic fields of the thin disk of material that surrounds it.

What you are looking at in the video is known as Herbig-Haro 46/47, and it is located in the southern constellation of Vela, 1,400 light-years from Earth. Though Herbig-Haro 46/47 has been imaged many times, the video above represent the first time it was imaged an extremely powerful telescope array in Chile that will help scientists study and better understand molecular outflows in space.

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