The Giant Herbig-Haro Flow HH 212 and Associated Star Formation

The bipolar jet HH 212, among the finest collimated jets known, has so far been detected only in near-infrared H$_2$ emission. Here we present deep optical images that show two of the major bow shocks weakly detected in optical [SII] emission, as expected for a bona fide Herbig-Haro jet. We present widefield H$_2$ images which reveal two more bow shocks located symmetrically around the source and along the main jet axis. Additionally, examination of Spitzer 4.5 $\mu$m images reveals yet another bright bow shock further to the north along the jet axis; no corresponding bow shock is seen to the south. In total, the HH 212 flow has an extent of 1050 arcsec, corresponding to a projected dimension of 2.0 pc. HH 212 thus joins the growing group of parsec-scale Herbig-Haro jets. Proper motion measurements indicate a velocity of about 170 km/sec, highly symmetric around the source, with an uncertainty of $\sim$30 km/sec, suggesting a probable age of the giant HH 212 flow of about 7000 yr. The jet is driven by a deeply embedded source, known as IRAS 05413-0104. We draw attention to a Spitzer near- and mid-infrared source, which we call IRS-B, located only 7 arcsec from the driving source, towards the outskirts of the dense cloud core. Infrared photometry and spectroscopy suggests that IRS-B is a K-type star with a substantial infrared excess, except that for an extinction of A$_V$ = 44 the star would have only a weakinfrared excess, and so in principle it could be a K-giant at a distance of about 2 kpc.