Herbig-Haro objects: The X-ray perspective

Herbig–Haro objects, named after George Herbig and Guillermo Haro who did early work in this area in the 1950s, are small regions in space emitting at wavelengths characteristic of highly excited material. Possible explanations for these objects have included rudimentary or failed stars and 'interstellar bullets', but the accepted version is now the jet-induced shock model, involving material streaming from young stars and colliding with the interstellar medium. This ties in with the optical and ultraviolet emissions but the absence of observed X-rays was a potential embarrassment to the theory. A 20-year search for the 'missing' X-rays proved unfruitful. But now the Chandra satellite observatory has detected X-rays from one of the brightest and closest of the Herbig–Haro objects, HH2.

Discovery of X-rays from the protostellar outflow object HH2
STEVEN H. PRAVDO, ERIC D. FEIGELSON, GORDON GARMIRE, YOSHITOMO MAEDA, YOHKO TSUBOI & JOHN BALLY
Nature 413, 708-711 (18 October 2001)
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18 October 2001 table of contents