English

A Study of HH 270 with the James Webb Space Telescope

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2026-04-14 v1

Abstract

We present a study of the Herbig-Haro object HH 270 based on observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Subaru Telescope, and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). High-resolution infrared images of H2_2 and CO were obtained with the NIRCam instrument (JWST) using the F212N (2.12 μ\mum) and F460M (4.60 μ\mum) filters, revealing a previously unseen collimated protostellar jet closer to the source, in addition to the very well defined bipolar cavities carved by the outflow. Newly identified knots associated with the jet were also detected. Ground-based optical images in the Hα\alpha (660 nm) emission line, alongside millimeter spectral observations of the (2-1) transition of 12^{12}CO, 13^{13}CO, and C18^{18}O, further enrich the analysis. The Subaru images show a connection between the optical outflow in Hα\alpha and the protostellar jet observed in the infrared. ALMA CO observations trace the kinematics of the entrained molecular gas in the protostellar outflow and reveal the dense, slow-moving material distributed around the driving source, HH270VLA1. These multi-wavelength observations show evidence of the interaction between the shock-excited jet emission and the molecular outflow seen at optical, infrared and radio wavelengths, which provides a detailed view of the complex structure and dynamics of HH 270.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.09897,
  title  = {A Study of HH 270 with the James Webb Space Telescope},
  author = {A. N. Ortiz Capeles and A. Noriega-Crespo and A. C. Raga and M. E. Lebrón and H. Arce and J. L. Morales Ortiz and C. A. Pantoja},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.09897},
  year   = {2026}
}