The new image and the 18 years old image of the star are compared and this comparison has revealed how the young stars develop in their early stages of formation.
The young star is called W75N(B)-VLA 2, and it is 4200 light years away from Earth.
The star is observed with National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA).
In the earlier image the hot, ionized wind is ejected by the star forming a sphere and the new image shows the wing taking the elongated form.
“The comparison is remarkable,” lead researcher Carlos Carrasco-Gonzalez of the Center of Radioastronomy and Astrophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico says, “We’re seeing this dramatic change in real time, so this object is providing us an exciting opportunity to watch over the next few years as a very young star goes through the early stages of its formation,”
The star during its formation ejects out hot, ionized wind for several years and it is surrounded by the dusty torus. Initially it is seen that the hot wind has taken the form of a sphere this is because the wind is expanding in all directions but when it hits the dusty donut shaped torus its expansion in that direction is slowed down and so it expands in the direction of the poles of the torus where there is no obstruction hence in the new images an elongated shape is visible.
“In the span of only 18 years, we’ve seen exactly what we predicted,” Carrasco-Gonzalez said.
He added, “Our understanding of how massive young stars develop is much less complete than our understanding of how Sun-like stars develop. It’s going to be really great to be able to watch one as it changes. We expect to learn a lot from this object.”
The findings are published in Journal Science.