Celestial Lightsabers: The Stellar Jets of HH 24 (2-D Zoom)

This sequence zooms from a night sky view of the Orion constellation into a striking Hubble Space Telescope image of the Herbig-Haro object known as HH 24. Located above the left side of Orion's Belt is the vast dark nebula called the Orion B molecular cloud complex. Within this molecular cloud are many bright regions where stars are forming. This video closes in on a particularly energetic example containing several newborn stars that give off long thin jets of emission. The prominent twin jets of emission from the hidden central star resemble a cosmic, double-bladed lightsaber.