Artist’s illustration of a protostar with jet and magnetic field observed with ALMA

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Artist’s illustration of a protostar with jet and magnetic field observed with ALMA

Artist’s illustration of a protostar with jet and magnetic field observed with ALMA

A cloudy disk-like structure is forming in the left, bottom corner with a star at its center. There are jets of light coming from below and above the star with a string-like, spiraling structure surrounding the jets. The spiral structure is stretched out as it begins just above and below the star, then transitions to consistent ring-like turns as it moves farther from the star. There is another star/disk/jet indicated in the distance at the top right corner. These two structures are in a dense, cloudy atmosphere with glimpses of a star field in breaks of the clouds.

This artist's illustration shows the twisted, funnel-shaped magnetic field (represented by white spiral lines) that ALMA detected wrapped around the gas outflow streaming from a young star embedded in the NGC 1333 IRAS 4A. New data revealed this ring-shaped structure in unprecedented detail, confirming a decades-old prediction of how magnetic fields launch and shape powerful jets from young stars.

Credit: NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/M. Weiss

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ALMA Star Formation and Protostars

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Artist’s illustration of a protostar with jet and magnetic field observed with ALMA

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