Chandra Release - October 18, 2001

Visual Description: HH2

The astronomical image shows two panels and features two Herbig-Haro objects, HH1 and HH2, which are nebulae in the Orion constellation.  Herbig-Haro (HH) objects are young stars that are still in the process of formation. They are named after their discoverers, George Herbig and Guillermo Haro.   The colors in the image are predominantly blues, with some orange and yellow highlights. The image on the left is a Palomar Digital Sky Survey optical image of the region showing both HH1 and HH2.  The panel on the right presents a zoomed-in version that shows the position of the X-ray source (circled in green) detected by Chandra in HH2, combined with an optical image from the Hubble Space Telescope. The Herbig-Haro objects are clouds of dust and gas that are either part of high-speed jets of gas streaming away from very young stars, or clouds of gas that have been hit by such jets.